Captain Obvious

Well I'm satisfied now. I was hoping the story behind the pic was as good as the pic itself, and you came through my friend!

AAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! I am not happy. This is NOT the smoking gun I was waiting for!!! Seriously though. I hope it works and you can move on with the project!!

And I would suggest that investigation be done outside of PM conversations. Investigations like this benefit other users in the future who are looking for solutions to similar problems.

As Patcon mentioned, the "hole" you are seeing in that pic is simply the jet needle dropped down out of sight. It's normal operation if the choke is on or if the nozzle has been adjusted down to affect the fuel ratio. It's not the problem here. But while I'm in here there are a couple things I wanted to ask about... First, what's the deal with that one carb with all the gouges and marks on the venture bridge? That thing is hammered!! Like the slide piston was stuck down at one point and someone stuck a screwdriver in there and tried to pry it up or something?? Probably doesn't make much functional difference, but those marks really show evidence of mistreatment in the past. Other question is... There are small (1/8 inch-ish?) holes in the bridges that are intentional. I assume they are 72 specific. Where do those holes go? :

Site, the shield in your pic is the top two in my collection. It's the only one that pushes inward towards the front to follow the contour of the pan. The others in my pic don't do that. AZDatsun, My 77 also has that top two design as well, so with your data point and Site's, it appears that style was used at least on 77, 78, and 79. According to the documentation, all the 240, 260, 280 used the same part number for that support - 11123-N4200. There is another part number listed for the 240 and 260- 11123-N3300, but I suspect that was for the very early cars and was quickly superseded by the later number. So they may have changed the shape of that heat shield on different years, but they never considered the change to be significant enough to warrant a change in part number? Form, fit, and function, they are all interchangeable apparently? I have no visibility into the part numbers for the ZX stuff... Does anyone know if they used a different version on the turbo? I ask, because one of these may be from a turbo motor, but to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself.

That's a fantastic pic!! Is that the summer that Bryan Adams talked so much about?

Another question while we're talking about such things... I've noticed that they used a number of different designs for the heat shield between the pan and the exhaust. I've got three different versions here. Top two are one style, third is different, and bottom is different again: Question for the Z trivia guys... Anyone know the lineage? What year(s) used which style?

Jeff, That's what I was thinking as well. For ease of installation (and raw material yield), I don't think I would make it all one piece, but I can't come up with any reason why you wouldn't (or couldn't) want extra support for every oil pan bolt. I'm also thinking that it wouldn't need to be exactly like the original two pieces. There are geometry options that would make it easier to produce. Anyway, I'm just musing here and wishing I had access to a water jet too! Haha!

Man... Every time I open this thread, I'm hoping and expecting the "Eureka!! I found it!!" The suspense is killing me!!

I trash picked a treadmill a while ago and stripped out the motor and DC controller*. I've repurposed that thing for so many different test applications that I've forgotten half of them. Here it is recently spinning up a Z distributor so I can poke around inside the stock ignition module: * Best time around here to find such a thing is in the spring. 1) People are doing "spring cleaning", and 2) The luster of the new year's resolutions have worn off.

Ummmmm... Site, I'm thinking that's not the author he was talking about.

And if someone was going to make custom pieces, would it be advantageous to make them longer than the stock ones to pickup more (all?) of the oil pan mounting bolts?

Jeff, Wow... I was just thinking the exact same thing yesterday! I'm putting stuff aside trying to get ready for a plating run and I was messing with some of those stiffeners. I've got a couple different sets and they are all bent and rusty. I was thinking it would be really cool to have some made from a thicker material and maybe even stainless.

Doubtful unless the linkage to the throttle opener system is binding up or something. Next time your idle hangs up, pop the hood and start pushing on different places on the linkage(s) and see if you can figure out where it's hanging.

Haha! Yeah, we'll never know for sure. And of course, all this chatter about what we think was a mistake may have all been perfectly intentional from the very beginning for reasons we don't know.

Gross. Congrats, I think that's the worst I've ever seen. Here's hoping the block and head don't look as bad!!

I don't have one here handy to compare, but I believe the servo diaphragms should be airtight and hold a vacuum. I think if yours won't hold, it's probably got a hole (probably age crack) in the diaphragm.

Haha!! Gotcha. Well I would be happy to berate my PO..... Here's a pic of the kind of PO handiwork I found on my car when I dug into the suspension. Yes, those are huge gouges of missing and upset metal on the precision bushing surface. I'm thinking he split and drove the old bushing out with an air chisel. And heat. Lots of heat. Enough heat to blue the ends of the control arms.

Haha!! "He hates these cans!!"

No, not at all. I'm imaging a conversation like that because I've heard it a thousand times in the engineering department. You're rushing around near the end of a project and some little issue raises it's head... You have to make quick judgment calls between project schedule, cost, and result quality. It happens and I'm not berating anyone. I've been there many times! The only thing that really went wrong (in my imagined scenario) is the memo to the documentation group informing them of the change didn't make it. Or maybe even that did, but they decided that since they already had 10,000 books printed up, they would fix it in the next rev. And maybe THAT didn't happen.

I've heard peopled talking about that in the past, and I'm not going to throw my body in front of anyone's train, but I think it's a bad idea. Clearance (gaps) are an enemy, and Carroll Smith says that bolts are strictly for clamping, not for anything else. I'm not a ME or a suspension expert, but I wouldn't do it. I've been known to substitute and modify stuff all over the place, but that isn't one of them.

LOL. I think I do a lot of that. Probably more than I should. Haha! Good luck with the project and hope it turns out well. My PO installed suspension was a total mess when I got my Z. I've since redone everything, and man.... Is it 1000 times better than before. Other than some steering wheel vibration at highway speeds (comes and goes), it's a pleasure to drive!

Well I hadn't thought much about a sales prospect, but I didn't hate making these. However, I didn't make the internal threads yet* as I did not have the correct tooling. I've got that tooling (special taps) on order and if that tapping process doesn't turn out to be a disaster, then I could probably be convinced to make a couple for sale if people need. Of course, that tapping process (especially in stainless) could still turn out to be a disaster. I'll let you know after the taps arrive. * The astute viewer might ask "Then how does it look like your brass tip is threaded onto the antenna in your pic???" The answer is... I drilled it out so it just slips over the threads. Proof of concept for outside shape only. I'm not really worried about tapping brass. The stainless concerns me more.

Yeah, I think someone missed a detail somewhere. Everything about the whole situation would make much more sense for the bushing to be symmetric. Assembly process would be foolproof because you wouldn't need to pay any attention to which direction it went in. and the documentation wouldn't have to mention anything about it because it just didn't matter. On the prototyping floor... "Hey Boss. I'm putting these bushings in and when I do that, I can't get the strut casting in between them. What are we going to do?" Boss says : "Hmmm... I'll let engineering know." Engineering says : " Oops. We'll need to either:" a) Change the strut housing design to reduce the width. b) Change the rear control arms to increase the span between the bushings. c) Change the bushing so things fit together without interference. And "changing the bushing is way cheapest and easiest to change, so lets do that." Draftsman/Designer says : "I can't shorten the outsides of the bushings because we need that length for the rubber washers. Should we eliminate the rubber washers and make the bushings symmetric, or should we make the bushings asymmetric and keep the washers?" Lead Engineer says : "Crap (in Japanese). I really want to keep those washers. Make the bushings asymmetric and make sure you let documentation know about the change because they'll have to describe how to put the bushings in correctly!" And that last part never happened. I wasn't there for any of it, but that's how I see the whole thing.

I have a bunch of turbo parts around here that I'm not going to use. I'll look to see if I have a cam. And even if I do, I don't remember if it's a regrind or stock. I'll check. Glad to help with the throttle body! I finally gave up on the S30 throttle body completely and switched over to one from a Sentra.