Walter Moore

1) Yes. You will have to modify the wiring somewhat to install the later radio. There are not many wires involved, but if that frightens you I suggest consulting a professional. 2) Probably. The radio's final power amplifier is designed to drive a certain load. Generally this would consist of a single speaker with an impedance of 8 Ohms. If you wire two 8 Ohm speakers in parallel the effective impedance drops to 4 Ohms, which will draw twice the current at any given volume setting. This could over heat the power transistors in the amplifier, causing them to burn out. And yes, the best that you could hope for is two speakers producing the same exact sounds. As you put it "mono" not stereo. 3) I have no idea where to obtain speaker brackets for the right rear of the early cars. That side of the car is very cramped because the fuel filler neck and the expansion tank are hidden under that panel. There really isn't any room for a speaker there anyway.

Growing up in the rust belt, where American muscle cars were the only "sports" cars around at the time, the Cragar Super Sports are just about the only wheels I associate with that era. I remember the occasional "slot mag", but it seemed the Cragars were the popular wheel around here.

Every time that I have had trouble removing a cylinder head from an engine it turned out that I had missed a head bolt somewhere. (Sometimes that is easy to do if the engine was dirty.)

"...I am sure the government will buy it." Sadly, I suspect that the U.S. government owns hundreds of them.

I routinely purchase new bullet connectors at Lowes. (The mega hardware/lumber yard) The connectors that they carry will actually plug into the originals and vice versa. I am sure that they are less expensive elsewhere, but how many do you really need?

5,000 RPM * 4 cylinders = 20,000 sparks / minute 20,000 / 3 cylinders = 6,667 RPM Not a whole lot of difference really. The GM V8's red line isn't generally limited by the ignition module. At least not in the older cars that still used the HEI module.

What he said... I second that motion. And now that you have piqued our interest, a link to your Challenger build pictures would be nice.

It has a solid hood. What makes you think that it is a 280Z? (Not that someone couldn't have put a solid hood on a 280Z, but it seems like there would be heat issues.)

I didn't realize that the voltmeter in the later cars was always hot. At first glance that would seem like a problem, however generally analog meters have an input impedance of 10,000 to 20,000 Ohms per volt, so with the scale showing a maximum reading of 16V that comes out to somewhere in the range of 160,000 to 320,000 Ohms. At 12V that calculates to a steady state load of 38-75 micro Amps. At that discharge rate it would take more than 10 years to discharge an 800CCA battery. So I would say it isn't a cause for concern.

Perhaps just truth in advertising.

The cold is bad enough, but the salt on the roads is the real issue. And if you can get the type of adapter that Steve mentioned that would be a really good idea. I have removed and re-installed transmissions in my car three times already and it takes all the force that I can muster. I used a transmission jack, but the problem is that you still have to twist and pull on the transmission until you get the splines to line up on the input shaft. There is no room for error on that. They either line up perfectly, or they do not line up at all.

Lucky? Steve, really... More likely you are: A. sufficiently knowledgeable to be able to maintain your own car (you are a retired Nissan mechanic aren't you? You are certainly a wonderful source of information on the intricacies of the fuel injection and air conditioning systems on these cars.) B. live in a state (California) where there are still a large number of good condition Datsuns available (Both because of the climate, and the mandatory air pollution testing that cars there must endure.) C. apparently were able to find one-owner cars (which has to help considerably) Many of us are stuck with rusty 30-40 year old cast-offs and are luck if we find one in rebuild-able condition. Back on subject, I personally prefer fuel injection to carburetors, when it is working properly. However when dealing with any 30+ year old car there are going to be issues with the old electronics and particularly the old connectors. In places where we have wide temperature extremes and high humidity you need to be wary of the electrical connections and wiring on any old car. The bad news is that wiring and connectors are at the heart of any ELECTRONIC fuel injection system.

The 4 bolts that you point to in your picture hold both the fan, and the fan pulley to the water pump. This is the "standard" arrangement in most RWD cars by the way. You should at least loosen the fan belt before removing these bolts. The reference to the crankshaft bolt being a 16mm bolt refers to the bolt diameter, not the head. The head requires a 27mm socket, but 1 1/6 works just as well, being 26.9875mm. The trick is that on the older engines at least, you need a 6 point socket. And the wall thickness of an impact socket will prevent it from reaching the bolt head. Since it is very difficult to find a 6 point 27mm non-impact socket in the U.S. the 1 1/6 socket is and easy substitute.

Could your cold start injector be leaking? How old are the injectors? Have you checked for vacuum leaks?

That sounds like a bad connection in the wiring harness. Check all of the connectors between the ignition switch and the ballast resistor, and double check your ground straps between the engine and the negative side of the battery. Somewhere you have a high resistance current path. (or possibly several.) Corroded or loose connectors can cause this, as well as bad splices.

Could the accelerator pump on the 4 barrel be set wrong? On a down-draft carb there is actually a pump that is actuated by the throttle to literally shoot a stream of fuel into the intake when you open the throttle. (Without this the mixture would lean way out until the system re-stabilized.) I had a friend back in the 70's who put some huge Holly "double pumper" with mechanical secondaries on his small block Dodge, and every time that he punched it from a stop light it would actually flood the engine with gas and the car would stall. (Followed by him spending several minutes with the hood open holding the throttle plate at WOT and fanning the carb to try to get the fuel to evaporate.) It is possible to put too much carburetor on an engine by the way.

These locations show how to convert from external to internal. This should give you the background needed to reverse the process. http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5996&highlight=ZX+alternator+upgrade http://datsunzgarage.com/engine/ http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5996&highlight=ZX+alternator+upgrade

No Longer Available. The bane of old car owners the world over...

I have had cars with headers and otherwise "stock" exhausts that were no louder than the same car with a standard manifold. (My 72 Pinto didn't change at all from stock manifold to header, but...) If the header isn't leaking it shouldn't make that much difference. The MSA exhaust systems tend to be loud, and I suspect that any of the ones you listed will be loud, with or without a header. I just added a glass-pack to my MSA system and it made a positive difference, but it is still not a "quiet car" by any stretch. At idle it seems very quiet, but when you rev the engine it still screams. (Actually I think it sounds MORE like a race car than before, but whatever) By the way, the MSA system that I have is the 3-2 with a turbo muffler. (I am cheap.) I have not driven the car since the addition of the glass pack, because it is salt season here, but it sounds better in the garage. Whatever you decide, I strongly recommend that you use band style clamps, instead of the old U-Bolt clamps, because they seal much better. Most of my initial exhaust noise was actually leaks between the pipe fittings.

One word to the wise, check the thickness of the terminal on the starter end of the + cable before mounting it on the car. Some of the parts store cables are too thick and don't leave you enough threads on the starter stud to get the nut on straight. I destroyed a starter that way once. On the last cable that I bought I ended up "adjusting" the thickness of the cable end with a large hammer. (Then I had to adjust its width with a file to keep it from touching things that it shouldn't)

Engine run-on can be a symptom of overheating, at least cars that are running way to hot will run-on.

If I had to guess I would say that it came out of a pickup truck. A 4.11 would be 37 x 9. Several people have suggested to me that I ought to pull the front differential from a 4x4 pickup truck because "they are always 4.11 difs." If you actually poke around on sites that sell Nissan truck parts you quickly discover that the "always" part isn't accurate. I don't know what a 4.5:1 final drive ratio would be like around town, but I suspect it would be annoying on the highway. (There may be some tracks where it would be handy...)

Here is a really basic question: His profile says he has a 1977 280Z. On that version do the "vents" in the dash connect to the heater box? I know that on the early cars "vent" and "heat" are separate airflow paths, and it isn't possible to get heated air from the dash vents. By the early 80's that was no longer the case, so I suppose that on a 77, it may be possible to heat the vent air. Generally there are three causes of "no heat" 1. Low coolant level. (Generally associated with overheating, but not always) 2. Plugged heater core. 3. Thermostat stuck open. Another possibility is that since he is in Alabama, a previous owner may have bypassed or plugged the heater hoses.

I assume that "messed up" includes broken off, which is what happened to all of mine.

That is part of the problem, but the other part is that we are running unleaded gasoline in cars without a catalytic converter. The anti-knock compounds that are in unleaded gasoline apparently smell horrible, and without a converter to burn them off you get that characteristic stench. I have the same problem with my 1967 garden tractor. It didn't smell bad back in the 60's and 70's, but today you have to take a shower after using it for any length of time at all.