Walter Moore

Nice side pipes by the way... I "rescued" my car from someone who intended to drop a SBC into it, because he had several "runnable" ones laying around. I suggested that he look into an old Corvette. But having said that, if the V8 route is direction that one takes, then by all means do it right and get the serious HP that is possible in that format. Fast cars are all about power to weight ratios, and if you are adding the weight, grab the power to make up for it.

So Allen, Will you be dropping by for the U.S. GP this month, or are we too "back water" for your tastes?

Alan... Of course you know who won the race. Dan Wheldon is your countryman is he not? And justification... there is no need for that. The world already knows.

Last time I was in Japan, someone I work with gave me a magazine (all Japanese which I can't read..) that is full of adds for those vertical door hinge kits. (Among other... um... er.. "Accessories.") So there is hope that you could make your existing car look more like the Shelby, if you really wanted.

I know it isn't original, but I was planning on just installing a "whip" style fixed antenna. Anyone have positive or negative experiences with those on a Z car?

I am by no means an expert on such things... but it looks to me more like they spliced a 240Z body onto a 350Z. The hood, center transmission "hump"... it all looks 350Z'ish. Even the front end details. But with enough time and money....

The 280ZX turbo wheels that I bought on Ebay last year, and have been cleaning ever since weight 14.5 to 15 lbs on our company shipping scales. (The scale has a resolution of 1/2 lb.) Two of the wheels register at 15.0 lbs no matter how they are placed on the scale. One registers 14.5. The fourth floats between the two readings. The truth must be somewhere in between...

It has an oil capacity of 1.3 Liters. (About 1 3/8 quarts.) But when it is installed in the car you wil not be able to get all of the old oil out, so it will take less than that to fill it back up. Just keep squeezing the bottle until it dribbles out of the fill plug hole. I don't know if the R200 that came in the 280Z has this same problem, but on my 240Z the steel pipe plug is perpetually siezed in the aluminum rear cover. The last time I took the fill plug out I had to use a long open end wrench and a floor jack to generate enough torque to loosen the thing. (Kids, don't try this at home...)

Make sure to mount it as solidly as possible. In my last "Sports Car" I had an ABC dry chemical fire extinguisher that I had mounted by just tye-wrapping the stock home wall mount attachment to the spare tire... One day in a hard corner I found myself driving in a fog... :stupid:

I bought my first car with ABS a couple of years ago, and the accessory that I want most is an OFF switch. I have done some stupid things in cars over the years, but none of them produced the terror of trying to make a panic stop from 40MPH on a bumpy road in a car with ABS. I pressed the pedal to the floor and NOTHING HAPPENED! The car did not slow down at all, because every time that the wheels got airborne between the bumps they would start to lock (of course.. that is what I wanted!) and the stupid ABS would release the pressure to the calipers! I am completely convinced that my older cars without ABS would have stopped significantly faster. Several of my friends have had the same experience. If I can't disable the ABS when it isn't raining or snowing, I don't want it at all. And don't even talk about "Traction control"...

1960's and 70's? The U.S. auto makers still build cars fast. Most plants produce at least one finished auto per minute. Up to the end of the production run last year the Chevy Cavalier was produced at a rate of one car every 50 seconds. Even the transplants run fast compared to Asian car factories. The Altima is produced at a rate of about one a minute at the Nissan plant in Tenn. Maximas are built considerably slower. The much slower production rate of Japanese auto plants was one of the major factors to the overall superior fit and finish of Japanese cars over the past decades. With more time comes the capacity to pay attention to detail.

I have had a lot of windshields replaced over the years. Normally around here you just call a shop and they come and install it onsite. Is that even possible with a Z car? Are there replacement windshields available? Or am I looking at replacing the windsheld like I have everything else on my car... by myself, and on my own?

Aluminum also conducts heat better than iron, so at least in theory shouldn't get as hot... or at least would cool faster. But in real world conditions, who knows?

I had a '72 Pinto with plugs exactly like those in the front springs... The springs eventually go so weak that they fell out. we had to lower the shackles on the rear leaf springs all the way down to get the thing to sit lever, and then it would actually get stuck in 6 inches of snow, since it only had about 4 inches of ground clearance. :stupid:

Let me explain my "wrong" answer... It never occured to me that you were asking about the specifics of a car show where the vehicle was being judged by anal-retentive nuts with so much spare time on their hands that they have actually memorized all the part numbers of every item on the car. I was giving a general answer. What I meant is that for most applications so long as the part is identical in form, fit, and function, who could possibly care? For example, compare these two parts: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=46102&item=7953368406&rd=1 http://www.courtesyparts.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=CP&Product_Code=18415-S30 Having NEVER seen the "Correct" part for my '71, how would I know which one is authentic? Why would anyone pay twice as much for one than the other? gnosez: You saw thirty 204Zs at the same car show? On what planet was that show held? I confess that I don't go to very many car shows, perhaps 2 or 3 a year, but I have never seen ONE 240Z at a show, let alone thirty. Bambikiller240: When I say that I am "restoring" my 240Z, I am using your definition number 1, "To bring back into existence or use..."

Have you driven this car? If it doesn't run, then you will have a hard, and expensive trial to get it back on the road. The body looks more intact than my car was when I started, but the pictures don't show the real critical areas of the car. Those are the frame rails, floor boards, and spare tire well. I have spent so much money on parts that I have actually stopped counting. I have done all the work myself (except the machine shop stuff) and after more than 2 years it still doesn't run. (I may be half way done...) If you are looking for a "project" that will take a long time, and don't care how long that time is, then perhaps... But if you just want to spruce one up and get it back on the road, this one will be expensive. On the other hand, for those of us who don't live in the desert, 240Zs are rare, and difficult to obtain. If there are any on the road here in Indy, I haven't seen them. You will run across a 300ZX now and then, and perhaps a 280Z or 280ZX once in a really great while. But the early cars just aren't as common here has they are in... other places.

Sorry, I did misread that post... he actually cut the strut tube, welded it back together shorter, and then used shorter shock inserts.... from a Toyota. Still not a good idea. In either case that weld is subjected to either the full preload force of the spring, or the full weight of one corner of the car, depending upon whether the cut was made above the lower spring support or below it. (Not to mention that the next owner of the car may end up having to buy (4) $600 strut housings if he wants to make the ride height original.) If all you want to do is install shock inserts with shorter rods, wouldn't it be easier (and safter) to insert spacers under the new shock body in the existing tube to take up the empty space? I mean all you would have to do is find some bar stock, or thick walled tubing of the correct diameter and cut it to the length you needed. But here is the real answer to the question. Call whomever it was that sold you the springs and ASK them what to do about the incorrect spring tension. They might even have strut inserts that have the correct length rod to make the springs work.

No, not the actual STRUT assembly itself. The installed spring length is controlled by the length of the ROD in the SHOCK insert. (The replaceable part) what my_mad_z did was to shorten this rod by cutting it an rewelding the threaded part back on to the remainder. (Which would scare me. I have seen too many welds break. But then, he is the one driving it...) In any event, if you intend to use shorter than standard springs, then you really need strut inserts with a shorter than standard rod. (At least that is what I think is being said here.)

It rains in California? I am so disillusioned... To get the screws out of the fender panel that blocks access to the filler tube I recommend an impact driver. I bought one of those years ago from JCWhitney, and it has become one of my favorite tools. I have rarely seen it fail to remove a rusted-in-place philips head screw. It looks like cross between a metal screw driver and a rachet. You just put the tip into the stuck screw and hit the end with a hammer. (There is usually a forward/reverse selection by twisting the end to the appropriate cam. I always have to push mine on the floor to make sure it is turning the right direction.) Once you take out that panel, removing the filler tube is easy, particularly if the OEM hose clamp is still on there. Just grab it with some channel-locks and break it. (You can't really reuse it anyway.)

Since everyone else is jumping in... Remember that the SU carbs for a 240Z have a MANUAL choke mechanism. Switching from EFI to the SUs is like steping back in time. If you intend just to race the car, then it MIGHT be worth the trouble, but for a daily driver... unless you really LIKE all the funky operation that goes with warming up the engine to get it to the one temperature where the carbs actually work correctly, I suspect you will be dissapointed.

That threw me into a panic as well... I marked the brackets when I took them off of my L24, but when I went to put them back on it just didn't look right at all. I had to start looking at the pictures that I took before I removed the engine, and pictures in my Haynes manual before I convinced myself that I had marked them correctly. The right hand bracket sort of looks like it is sticking up in the air when the engine is still on the stand. But this allows the engine to tilt to the right when mounted in the car. Go through the gallery a little and look at pics of other people's engines to get an idea of what we are saying. So far as I know, the L24, L26, and L28 blocks are essentially identical externally.

I doubt that you need a new head, but you do need to find a machine shop that is equipped to deal with aluminum cylinder heads. (A lot of the generic "We can fix anything Chevy makes" shops are terrified of aluminum) My cylinder head was in bad shape from the P.O. driving it with a bad head gasket, and needed major welding, but a local shop here in Indy did a fine job. The trick is to find someone who works on a lot of motorcycle, and/or import car cylinder heads. Those shops will have the ovens that are required to heat the aluminum enough to weld it without warping it.

By the way, Merry Christmas! I got off easy on the snow this week, only 7 inches, practically nothing compared to what landed just south of here. Evansville (about 120 miles south of me) ended up with over 2 feet of the stuff. It is a balmy -2F (That is -19C for those of you not in the backwards U.S.) So, I have had occasion to use my heated rear windows recently.

As for the horizontal heat "lines" clearing ice better, I agree that it indeed does do that. All the cars that I have ever had with heated rear windows had the heat lines running horizontally. Actually, now that I think of it, I have never even seen vertical heat lines...

Actually, I suspect that the difference isn't that U.S. dynos are "optimistic", just what they are measuring...SAE VS DIN VS BHP etc... for reference check out the following links: http://www.nsxprime.com/FAQ/Miscellaneous/TorqueHPSpeed.htm http://www.thepaty.plus.com/8v/top10/dyno.htm And I am sure there are others.