Captain Obvious

I've had problems with the stock pump priming sometimes. Usually will prime, but sometimes won't. And if you think about the way it works, it's not surprising. I'm thinking that the insides of the pump and the impeller bits are not a gas tight fit. It pumps the fuel because of the relative incompressability of the liquid and the fact that even though there would be some losses between the parts, the majority of the fuel will be moved from one spot to another. Not necessarily the same thing will happen with a gas.

Your response got here just before mine, but the summary of my post is that the car parts manual lists three different sash part numbers*. 80200-N3400 up to 7506 80200-N4500 from 7507 to 7607 And it supersedes 80200-N3400 80200-N4400 from 7608 to the end of the run. And it supersedes 80200-N4500 Based on that, and your pics, it's not a straightforward swap. * For the 260-280 cars. The 240 used a different part number.

I'm no engine builder expert, but I've always installed the bushing to even with the bottom of the chamfer like you and Patcon. And I greased them a little as well. With the same stuff I put on the throw out bearing collar. High moly I believe? About installing... Block of wood and a mallet to get it started. Continuing like that until flush with the flywheel surface, and then tapped "gently" with an appropriately sized dowel (wood or plastic) and aforementioned mallet to get it down the the bottom of the chamfer.

I will take a look at the trim mounting scheme and take a couple pics of the later design. I don't know if the 77-78 design will fit other years, but maybe we can figure it out. I do know that the 77-78 doors are very different in a lot of ways, but I'm not sure if the window trim is one of them.

Excellent. And in theory, that peel-n-seal stuff is removable enough that if you ever do have to pull the tail lights out again for anything, it will let go easy (as designed) and you won't have to put a lot of stress on the plastic light housings. Glad you got the fume issue under control!

So there was an intermittent connection in the "T" connection at the back of the alternator? You fixed that and you're charging system is all good now? Excellent!!

Thinking about it some more, I think this could work if you did it well. Some threaded aluminum rod screwed into the holes and loctited (red) in place. Then file flush and put in your new mounting holes. If you could cut the threads yourself on a lathe, you could make the threaded rod a tight class of thread fit which would make matters better. The new holes will be split about 50/50 between the old bolt hole and virgin material. I think red threadlock would work, at least for a proof of concept. and once you get the throttle body installed, it's not like anything will be able to move anymore. I'd give that a try over using a plastic 3D-printed adapter.

Haha! No big deal. I was just thinking there was a bunch of discussion about different adapters ideas bantered about. Might give you some ideas.

Yeah, really nothing to lose. Just soak them again in the citric and see what happens. I had some black staining on certain parts, but it was the higher carbon stuff. Things like that pulley worked fine, but I did find that the original zinc (assuming that's was actually going on) was thicker in some areas than others and took longer to come off.

Yeah, this is a situation where wings flapping is not what you want.

From my limited experience, I think that is leftover zinc from the original plating. I didn't look into it any from a chemistry standpoint, but when I was doing the citric acid cleaning, it seemed like the yellow chromate came off quickly (if there actually was any remaining), and then the zinc came off next at about the same rate at which light rust came off. So I'm thinking that if you would put those parts back into a citric acid bath again (maybe a fresh (warm-to-hot?) bath), I think those large darker patches might come off and leave you with a homogeneous surface.

There are four screws at the upper front of the console. Those screws (two on each side) go into the radio bracket. That bracket does not attach to anything else, so it does not anchor the console to the car in any way, but it does provide support for the two front "wings" so they don't flop around. The other two screws lower than that (one on each side) actually hold the console in place. Those two go through the console and screw into the #10 bracket, which is attached to the transmission tunnel.

When you did it a second time, did you weld both sides of the pin, or just the far side from the cable? Also, did you consider silver brazing the cable into the pin? I think I would have tried that.

Man... That's just cheating. Not fair!

I'm a little disappointed that there wasn't the obligatory "Hey Y'all, watch this!" at the beginning.

I know it's a lot of reading, but take a look through this thread starting on about page 6 or so. There is also a bunch of talk about making adapters and such. https://www.classiczcars.com/forums/topic/64413-just-another-damned-z-car-project-thread/?page=6

Wooo Hooo!!!

So if the problem with your original throttle body is mechanical stickiness from your cable linkage design, maybe we could work on fixing that instead of completely switching to a different throttle body? But if you already have your mind set on a different TB... It's a long shot, but what is the possibility there is enough meat to add some additional new mounting holes? They can be smaller than the originals (which I believe are M8). If there's enough room to add some M6 holes in the flange without overlapping the original holes? Something like this: Or how about some custom studs that are M8 on one end to thread into the intake manifold, and M6 on the other end to pass through the (larger than they would need to be) holes in the throttle body? Maybe enough meat in the throttle body to use a file to slot the holes enough to get the smaller M6 bolts to clear? It's just a throttle body and it doesn't weigh a lot. Not a lot of load. And it would still seal against the gasket. Yeah, it's a little hacky, but would be easier than welding the holes shut and starting over.

Agreed, assuming the valve is mechanically locked with the module unplugged. I don't know if it's a spring loaded vane valve inside or some sort of servo motor driven pintle. As long as the valve position is completely locked with the electronics disconnected, then this would be a good test.

Well at this point, the next thing I would do is disable the idle controller system. Pull the low side vacuum hose off and plug both resulting holes. And if that doesn't have any effect, I would disconnect the wire from the coil as well and see if that does anything. I'm not contesting that the system works fine at idle. I'm concerned that it's not working properly ABOVE idle. Breaking out into some sort of oscillation, or switching between it's different modes when it should not be. Something like that. Again, just tossing out ideas in the hope that you get to the root of the problem.

Well there's the obvious solutions... Weld the holes shut and drill new, or make an adapter plate? Adapter plate is a little complicated because of the bolt holes all wanting to be in the same locations. Could weld the plate into position or clock the new throttle body 45 degrees to put the mounting holes in a different location. Take a look at this thread starting on about page 6. Lot of throttle body stuff in there, although at the very end (26 pages!!) I still don't know how it ever turned out. https://www.classiczcars.com/forums/topic/64413-just-another-damned-z-car-project-thread/?page=6 @conedodger What did you ever do with your throttle body? How did it all turn out?

Well that 2500-3000 oscillation is really wacky. So you said that you had a timing light on it when that was happening and the light did not drop out, right? The actual timing advance number changed some as the RPM's changed, but other than that, no issues? And the hunting issue occurs with both the original stock module and the GM HEI? A test light on the injectors is a good idea. Not sure it'll show anything, but who knows. What about your changes to the BCDD and the blockoff there. Did it run correctly after you put on blockoff revision 2? Wonder if maybe something in there is flapping around. And you have that fancy idle controller thing, right? Are you sure it's not screwing something up? Just tossing out ideas.

The stock throttle body mounting bolts are on a 60mm square. Here's a sketch I whipped up a while back for a throttle body spacer I made. Might have some other interesting measurements on it, but the bottom line for the question at hand is 60mm square:

Those pressure readings look OK. Manifold vacuum is a little lower than what I would want, but in the ballpark at least. So what's the assessment of how good or bad the engine runs today? There are 13 pages past in this thread, but what's the latest at this point?

Haha! Well THERE'S your problem! So about the video of the hunting issue... You're holding you foot steady and it's doing that rocking back and forth between 2500 and 3K all by itself?