Walter Moore

Isn't that what Nissan did on the late model 240s and 260s? Run an electric pump in the back to boost the pressure to the mechanical pump in the front? If the Carter puts out more than 7psi it might damage the mechanical pump unless he put his regulator ahead of the mechanical pump. (The mechanical pump will not lower the pressure.) This was one of the vapor lock fixes that they put on the carbed cars. There is even wiring for an electric pump in the factory harness. (Which I wouldn't use on a bet.)

Installed a 125A Z Specialties alternator, new ignition switch, and repaired the turn signal switch in my car.

No better down here in Indy. The Z is in the garage for the duration.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

It was a 4.3L from an S10, and they trashed the engine, hood, and a perfectly good autocross track. I watched the video once, and concluded that they are fools who are best ignored. Back on topic: The 3.6L Chevy V6 is a DOHC engine, and as such it may well be wider than the OHV V8 LSx motor. I would measure carefully. http://media.gm.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2011/Apr/0413_camaro_engine.html

Congratulations. You have a lot of work ahead of you. But if you stick with it, you can have a nice car.

I have the MSA kit on my car, and I ended up adding a straight through muffler right after the header because it was too loud. (But maybe I am just too old to appreciate the noise.) ;-)

He is talking about a "Single Wire" hot rod alternator, not an OEM alternator for any particular GM product. I tried that when I first got my car running, but could never get the belt aligned properly.

Nissan seems to be throwing out trial balloons left and right just to see who shoots at them. Personally, since the existing car is based on the RWD Infinity chassis I would be watching the direction that those cars are headed because that is more likely to be the direction of any future Z.

I know that this has been beat to death, but back when I put my car together I replaced the fuel tank sending unit with a new one, and like everyone else the gauge read 3/4 full with fuel all the way up the filler neck. I was replacing my electric fuel pump this weekend, and drained the tank so that I could replace all of the hoses. This gave me an opportunity to pull the sending unit back out and "tweak" it a little. I started by bending the arm slightly, to get the Empty reading a little higher. Then I noticed something strange about the position of the rheostat when the arm was in the Full position (See the picture Rheostat_1) With the arm on the travel limit, the wiper of the rheostat was not at the full travel of the wire wound resistor. Measuring it with an Ohmmeter the reading for Full was 14 Ohms, and empty was 85 Ohms. (Which was full electrical travel.) By bending the travel limit slightly as shown in the picture SendingUnitTravelLimit, I was able to get the wiper all the way to the end of the rheostat. In that position the resistance reading is around 4 Ohms. (Note that I have drawn a rectangle around the Full travel limit for clarity.) When I put everything back together, the gauge now reads E when there is no gas in the tank, and slightly above F when the fuel level is all the way up the filler neck. It isn't very linear in between, but given the shape of the tank, I wouldn't expect that.

Last weekend I rebuilt the rear brakes on the 240Z. A couple of years ago the handbrake cable stuck on the driver's side and I was concerned that it had eaten the drum. I couldn't get the drum to slide off easily, so I assumed that the shoes had worn the braking surface down. I replaced the handbrake cable last winter, but could never get it adjusted tight enough to hold very well. I waited until this winter to work on it because I wanted to buy a new aluminum drum. When I got the drum off I could see that the drum just had a very small ridge on the inside edge, 1mm at most. The true root cause of the trouble was that with the handbrake cable stuck for a couple of years, the pads had worn down on that side, but the brake adjuster didn't compensate for the wear. (On the early car the FSM states that the brake adjuster is actuated primarily by the handbrake, which mirrors my experience.) So I took the ridge off with sandpaper. (It wasn't on the braking surface.) Then I installed new shoes and adjusted the brakes tight. A slight hand brake cable adjustment, and everything works great. I even drove it to the Indy Z car club meeting on Thursday. Today I changed the oil. Once it gets warm I will adjust the SUs. For now it runs OK, and there is no point in messing with them until the weather is warmer, because if I set them now the car will run rich in the summer. Also over the winter I installed a new volt meter and a fuel pressure meter. (Both AutoMeter brand stepper style units.) I have had ongoing issues with the electric fuel pump. Last fall the car stalled on a club cruse, and I had to bypass the oil pressure safety switch to get home. I replaced that switch, and added a light on the dash to show if the electric pump has electrical power. The upgrades will not prevent the issue, but they will help to diagnose any future problems I may have.

Having a 10 year warranty worked for Hyundai. People, somewhat justifyably, viewed them with suspision due to a reputation for poor quality. The unusually long warranty that Hyundai provided eased the fears of some people, and helped them overcome the image of poor quality. But the promise only brings people to the table. If the product doesn't live up to the expectation, then the customers will eventually run away. With the notable exception of the V6 Tiburon which ate clutches, Hyundai was able to demonstrate that their cars are worthy of the warranty. Chrysler has tried twice to use very long warranties to attract customers. The first time was in the early 1980's with their 5/50 powertrain warranty (I bought one, and only one1), and after the collapse of 2009 they started letting people buy "Lifetime" warranties. (I know someone who has a truck with that option, and it was a major incentive to buy the vehicle.) G.M. isn't really in either situation. They have a large installed base, and a fairly loyal customer base. (Let that sink in for a moment...) Most of their customers for new cars do not keep a car for 10 years in the first place, so the extended warranty wasn't an incentive. The people who hate G.M. are not going to be swayed by a long warranty either. So far as I know, neither Ford, nor Toyota offer 10 year warranties, and they both weathered the 2008-2009 economic crash just fine.

I have Redline MT-90 in my 5 speed. Penzoil Synchromesh is the only other oil that I know of that is a GL4. Don't use anything else or it will eat your syncros. (There is sulfur in the GL5 oils and it destroys the bronze synchronizer gears in the transmission.)

The main purpose of a dial-back timing light is to measure the total advance with the engine at speed. The timing marks don't go far enough to display total advance. As Zed Head stated, you add the dial back setting to the displayed value.

Man, the electronics in the rally clock really date the design don't they? Sometimes we forget that the original Z was built in the era of slide rules. (When some at IBM still believed that the world really only needed a few dozen computers.) I remember the first quartz crystal watch I ever owned, a Timex. It was given to me as a high school graduation present, and was worth over $100. We were all astounded by the accuracy. It was guaranteed accurate to within 15 seconds per month, which was unheard of at the time. Maybe that is why I have never even considered replacing the original clock in my car. It still runs, and so long as I set it every day it keeps reasonable time.

Well, that explains why my valve seals seem to be leaking...

I had the later wheel cylinders on my car at one time, but that was when I couldn't get the brakes adjusted. I ended up pulling them off and putting the early wheel cylinders on while replacing every brake component with Nissan OEM parts, or direct replacements. (The drums were new, but aftermarket) I really don't think that the wheel cylinders were my problem. I believe it was bad brake hoses. Anyway, you may be able to buy the later backing plate hard lines, but if not you will have to hand bend custom hard lines from the wheel cylinder to the brake hose manifold at the top of the backing plate. Be careful to match the arc of the original line as much as possible, and make sure that both sides are exact mirror images of each other. The the screwball drum system on these cars the wheel cylinder slides in the backing plate during operation, and the hard lines have to flex as it moves. It is imperative that the steel brake lines do not interfere with the wheel cylinder movement, and that both sides work the same.

I have the K&N stock replacement filter in my 240Z. (Stock air cleaner) The paper filters are not available locally, so I bought it for convenience. It is almost never dusty here in Indiana, so long as you stay on the PAVED roads. (The sole benefit of living in what was once a swamp) Except for bugs and pollen there isn't much to filter out of the air around here. And since I seldom drive the car 6000 miles a year, I am not that worried about filter efficiency.

First check the "breaker plate" in your ZX distributor to make certain that it actually moves. (Many of the older ones are stuck) You have to remove the advance canister to check this. If it is stuck, there is no reason to pursue the vacuum advance. (At least with that distributor.) I actually modified the breaker plate to limit the maximum advance by adding a hard stop in the slot. I have my initial timing set to 10 deg. BTDC. Using my dial-back timing light I have verified 17 deg of centrifugal advance (for a total of 27 deg at 2800 rpm) and 17 deg of vacuum advance. However, if I run anything less than 92 octane the car pings when the vacuum advance comes on at highway speeds. It works best at 93 octane. (That is U.S. octane rating methods, your country may be different.) After driving the car this way for 5 years, I am not sure that VA really accomplishes very much. It mostly makes the engine "feel bigger" when you accelerate gently in too high of a gear. At wide open throttle the VA does nothing at all. That is why the racing guys (who are always either full throttle or no throttle anyway) just disconnect the thing.

I owned, or drove many of those cars. Except for the Z, they were totally forgettable bulk junk. As I recall the EXP had a 4 speed, but 4th was an overdrive. When you look up "Can't get out of its own way" there is a picture of one...

I had to use a sawsall, and then take the struts to a machine shop with a 30 ton hydraulic press. It was almost too much for the press.

Not much left of that one. Looks like someone grabbed a bunch of rusty Z-car parts, and put them in a pile.

All of this on a forum dedicated to cars that have virtually no safety devices at all... I mostly agree with Zed Head. The basic problem here is that Honda and Takata tried to keep this quiet in the hopes that this was an isolated quality control problem, not a basic design issue. They didn't want to have to shell out the money to replace all of the air bags of that design. Who knows? Maybe they have been successful with that approach in the past. As for the "power level" of the air bags being unnecessary due to governmental regulations, if this truly is a design flaw that is likely irrelevant. They tell me that the hand grenades used by the U.S. military today are much less powerful than the ones used from WWII to Vietnam because now that they train women for combat they had to make them light enough for a woman to throw. The lighter grenades still kill people. The analogy is that a design flaw in a "less powerful" air bag would be just as deadly as one in a more powerful air bag. From what I see in the articles linked in this thread, The air bags in question seem to operate more like an IED than a safety device. But then I am not fond of air bags in any event.

I haven't used ramps since I bought a house with a garage and concrete floor. We used to use ramps when I lived with my parents on the gravel floor of their carport. Personally, I don't trust them. (ramps) However while my imitation BRE spook is high enough off the floor to clear nearly all curbs, and parking lot bumpers, but there is just barely enough room under it to wiggle a floor jack down the center of the car to lift the front end by the cross-member. It seems to me that if the car was lowered even a little I would never be able to lift the car in the "usual" way. Maybe that is why people use ramps.

The shorter filter is actually for the later cars. I think it is required on the S130 to clear some accessory. I have used the short filter with no issues.