Stanley

Thought I could find a used one, but the guys that work on the Z's say they just throw them away (the old antennas) and have the audio guys put a new one. Not in my budget for now. That "problem" has me worried since the star thing is already kind of beat up. But I'm starting to hate how I fixed it, so I better try one.

About welding in a flex coupler. Photos. Nothing an exhaust technician doesn't know; information for the rest of us. Seems like a good idea to me, at least with the modifications suggested. Some good critical comments. http://www.eastwood.com/blog/diy-how-to/header-leak

240z has knob to adjust brightness of the gauges, maybe 280z also.

Great idea using longer hoses from the fuel rail to the banjos while setting the floats. It took me about ten tries for each carb to get them where I wanted, using sight glasses, (2mm higher for rear carb btw) and had to pull the hoses off and replace them every time. At least the levels tend to stay put once they're set. If you're concerned about gas running out of the sight glass and/or the vent, and it might in the course of adjusting the levels, you can run some tubing from the vents into an improvised catch can.

Me too. Don't know much except that if the timing isn't on, you're throwing away a bunch of potential speed. My Z did fine with stock US timing and regular gas and the stock head. With a newer, higher compression head it was pinging so I went to premium (91 in CA) gas, OK. Then got a FSM and a light and put it at 17 deg per book for my new euro distributor. I was burning rubber all over the place and it's an automatic. Pinging badly though so I put it about 10 deg. at 1000 rpm IIRC. So I guess I learned something. Feel like there's more to learn though. Feel like I'm shooting from the hip with this. How much ping is OK? 150K on the engine and I don't want to hurt it; but also don't want the CRX's to beat me. Ran the rock drill in my youth so my ear's not great.

Fixed it, sort of. Cut the end off a rubber vacuum cap with wire cutter, it fit OK, should keep most of the rain and carwash water out. The piece that broke off was plastic, not rubber.

I got one too. Ramsesosirus is correct.

I gotta spend more time checking that site. Not the part though, the thing that broke off fits tight on the lowest part of the antenna, then it widens at the bottom to fit around the part that the antenna extends from. Not sure what it looks like since I never paid attention to it when it existed. Maybe it's a standard part on various cars.

Anybody know a good replacement ? It cracked and fell off. Don't like the idea of water getting in there. I guess I could used one of those rubber vacuum caps and drill a hole in it, but it's hard to drill rubber.

What springs are you running? I was running lean at top end and full throttle (stock 240 displacement, head and exhaust mods), installed SM's after modding the N-27's didn't do it) but it still leaned out at transition to full throttle. Finally fixed it by installing the red springs; they're stiffer. Still not perfect; the british needles are thicker at the base than the Hitachi SU needles, so I had to set the mix nuts richer to avoid running lean at bottom end. Now it's a little too rich at idle, otherwise OK. Also gas mileage went down with the red springs. Don't know what else to do though. If I mod the SM's by turning them down at the base, then the mix would need to be reset which would cancel out the richer top end they provide. Seems like there's a very narrow range of mix settings with the SM's. 1/8 of a turn off and it's no good.

This is a worthwhile adventure. Slightly off-topic, but I think there have got to be some possible hacks, maybe substituting different transistors or power supply parts, that would improve the horrible power, sensitivity and selectivity of these radios. It's by far the quietest car radio I've ever heard, and my ghetto blaster picks up about twice as many stations.

During my few years as a Z owner, always seeking ways to get more than stock performance from fairly stock systems, I've studied many posts from J.C. on this site and elsewhere. Many conversations were over my head, but those are just the sort of posts that encourage more study, and eventually understanding. People with this depth of experience and knowledge, that are glad to share it, are of great value to us all.

My early '73 has no lock or knob. Someone bent the filler door too far open when they were stealing my gas; now it doesn't totally close.

Doubt if this will be helpful, since I don't know exactly what I did, but last year I removed the hazard switch on my '73 to clean the contacts. Somehow, when I reinstalled it in the dash, it ended up with the threaded part of the shaft sticking out through the dash about 1/2 inch too far. I put the retainer and knob back on and left it like that, because it worked and I didn't feel like crawling back under there. And still don't.

I put an aluminum 3-row radiator, fan shroud and oil cooler (the smaller one from MSA) after constant overheating on a summer trip to Tucson. Seems to work. Eastbound on the 10 from Palm Springs there's a long upgrade. Palm Springs can get to 120F. Have seen overheating cars on the side of the road every trip. The Z is OK with it now, can go fast up the mountain on a hot day, zipping around all those slow trucks, and temp stays normal. Probably the oil cooler helps. As others say, unnecessary in more normal conditions. My oil cooler has a bypass with a bimetal strip in the adapter, so it doesn't keep it from coming up to operating temp.

From that radiator ornament it's got to be the one built at Pierre's shop. I posted a photo. When I saw it, it didn't have the windshield, top, and other finishing touches. They drove it out to Orange and back last year for the MSA show, no muffler, just open headers. Very loud. I talked to the owner's father about it, it has a 280Z engine.

I didn't. It wasn't too bad; the jute came up easily and I didn't care about the few small tarry spots. The (?) original paint was OK so I didn't want to scrape it off. Turpentine would probably take the tar right off, though. Then you'd have to get rid of the turpentine smell.

I got a roll of insulating material to go under the carpet, about 3 ft. wide x 6 ft. long at PEP Boys. Has quilted aluminum foil both sides and some insulation inside. Cut to fit. Works much better than the jute to keep heat from exhaust pipe away from floor at driver seat. On a hot day, I thought it smelled like someone had been smoking pot in my car, but the smell was coming from the old jute. Not a bad smell really.

Are the carbs 4-screws ? The early carbs have a much different procedure for aligning the nozzles. I can't explain it because I have 3-screws with a fixed lateral location for the nozzles, so I never bothered to learn it. The ZTherapy video explains it in detail, though. Also, it should be in the '71 FSM.

McMaster-Carr has more kinds of clamps than you could shake a snake at, if you don't need original.

It would be interesting to see what the fuel pressure is, measured between the mechanical fuel pump and the fuel rail, with both mechanical pump and stock (or otherwise) electric pump both hooked up and working. My '73 had both but the stock electric pump by the tank wasn't working. I removed it and tested it hooked up to the battery and it sounded fine. Guess it was unconnected somewhere at the harness. 73's came with flattops, don't know what recommended fuel pressure was for them but Nissan must have figured it was OK to run both pumps. I'm running SU's with stock mech. pump only, it puts out about 4.0 psi with the return line plugged. I've seen fuel pressure drop to about 3 psi on very hot days on the freeway when speeds vary suddenly from 75 mph to "parking lot". Might have indicated a borderline vapor lock condition, but the F.P. gauge was the only indication.

New gasket even if the one on there looks OK ? Guess I'd buy one in advance anyway in case it gets messed up somehow.

Will do.

Stock '73 bottom end, 1980 L20aet head (F.I. turbo) with round exhaust ports and F.I. notches. SU carbs from P.O. conversion. Planning MSA 6-2 header, wondering what header/intake gasket to get. Seems like a common question but couldn't find the right thread. Been running this head for a few years with no problems other than carb/ignition tuning, it all bolted up OK. I can ask the mechanic what gasket he put but he might not remember. MSA catalog says use 77-78 280z headers for round port head. They say call about header gasket if using round port head with SU's but asking here first. Do the injector notches in 77-78 F.I. gasket matter ? Any other issues ?

Strangely, I had the same idea about a CAD section when I was messing around with my 3D CAD last night. I was thinking about drawing some headers, and was wishing there was a CAD model of an S30 with engine bay, and engine with transmission and carbs available to work from. Our member from St. Petersburg drew up a nice one, put tons of work into it, and others added to it, but the links didn't work for me. There are probably a few places that can build headers from 3D model, if not there probably will be in the near future. Your model looks good. It encouraged me to learn my CAD better. I've done drafting with Solid Edge 2D for a while for my work, doing construction plans. Also use SketchUp. Got ViaCad Pro a few months ago, mainly for detailing steel frame connections, but haven't learned it yet, so far just drew some burgers and shakes on a tray. The Nissan engineers and draftsmen did nice work, all with pencil and paper, including 3D cutaways, etc. CAD section would be the place to post that stuff, since any dimensioned 2D drawings can be a starting point for 3D models. I expect the old drawings that aren't dimensioned are drawn to correct scale, so they can easily be pulled out to match a known dimension like wheelbase, and all the other dimensions can be filled in. I wonder how reproduction body parts are made. Do they use CAD/CAM for that ?