Bruce Woolmore

no they are not the same - pretty sure the carb mounts are, but that's it - jets, tubes etc all different and non-interchangeable.

SU's are not a patch on triple side-draughts

I would agree with the concensus that the Dellortos are at least as good as webers and maybe a bit easier to tune. I have owned cars with all three. I have currently have Mikunis but they are hard to get bits for. main thing is DONT OVERCARB 40s are just fine on a road car, as for machining carbs, well thats just silly stuff

yes my car is an HLS30 (L for Left Hand drive of course) same as the early series.

thanks for the compliments - the colour is more towards the copper rather than the metallic gold of the factory shades, its actually a Nissan sedan colour of approx. 2000 vintage called "champagne glow" I'm eventually going to re-powdercoat the Enkeis in a dark silver metallic rather than the off-white; but my bro reckons its fine like it is, so thats a low-priority job. maybe replace the Mikunis with throttle bodies first!

well if you want to see my 280, have a look on my zed page : http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/woolmore/Zeds.htm - the engine bay photo isn't great, other wise you could see a plate on the left side of the car where the pedal box has been shifted - still a coupla "funnies" to fix, like the passenger has a clutch footrest, but I dont! and the indicators are on the left, not the right - but I'm getting used to that, since my gearshift hand is free most of the time anyway! (just like driving an old Cortina!) I didnt do the conversion, but I know it involved a new dash and wiring loom for starters! basically not a recommended project, but its fun to own something a bit different. there is at least one other 280Z in NZ (as I found thru this site!) the NZ Z club has been going since the early eighties, much smaller than the OZ one and heavily biased towards racing (no bad thing except they keep writing off bodyshells!) I'm going to stick to quiet stuff like standing quarters with this car!

I put a set on my last 240Z (L28 engine) off a 4.2 XJ6, and found the stock needles and seats from some parts carbs that I also got were pretty close, much better than the Jag set - they were from a Rover 2000TC, but cant remember the year, sorry - think they were the AAA profile.

I know cos I've got one! some crazy fool brought it in and converted it to RHD! It's just like a 260Z, but big heavy doors (intrusion bars) that shut with a solid clunk! as others have pointed out the front valance is a different shape - they have huge ugly hydraulic bumpers that stick out a mile, that I chucked for 240Z ones. mine has 44 Mikunis in place of the injection. but basically its just a ZED, better than a ZX, better than a 2+2 of any ilk - I like all the 2 seaters, even the ZX coupe looked ok, shame about that trailing-arm suspension tho. oh and excuse me from butting in on the ozzy pages, havent set up a kiwi one yet but give me time ... :-) have to look some of you guys up next time I'm over the ditch! cheers

funny you should mention them, - I put XA mirrors on my first zed, wouldnt mind doing the same again! ..

don't stop at 32mm, machine those chokes right out to 36mm! may not be any venturi left, but hey, look at the extra air they'll let in! maybe even try some from a Holley carb .. and despite what anyone has said, under no account check your accelerator pump settings!

7.4% increase in sv , offset by increased inertia of heavier pistons? I dont think I'd do a piston swap just for that.

long time since I had mine , but ... check your pump jets and stroke before dumping your em tubes, much more likely to be a problem there - i ended going DOWN in pump size and up in stroke, for better progression. do a search on Dellortos, I posted my old settings in carb forum - theres plenty of knowledge about them, too. good luck, you'll love them once you get them tuned - but it does take a bit of patience!

IMHO (qualification for expressing opinion; owned 2 240s, worked on the missus' 260 (now ex) (car as well as woman, dammit) and now own a US 280Z converted to triples and RHD) any of the "240Z shape" are just great, just drive them and enjoy! SU's suck ! (well they are carbs, after all!) witness all those orrible old british sporties with them (I know, I have owned most of them) 2+2s are just plain ugly, Jaguar proved that years ago with the E-type 2+2. as for 240-snobbery, who gives a F.. whether your 240 has hatch vents, throttle knob, etc??? I have to admit to even quite liking the 280ZX coupes! 300s are nasty in any form. 350? well they made a fuss about the 300 when it first came out , too!!! as for a V-6, talk about charisma bypass. what was wrong with the wonderful Nissan straights (240, Godzilla)?? so go on, make my day and disagree, punk!

thanks for the feedback guys - Alan I'm running 44s, not 40s, so your settings may not translate, but how about posting those main/air settings anyway? (btw I suspect your 40s with 32 chokes would be round about ideal for a fast road car, thats what my Dellorto'd car ran) Brian, if you are running NEEDLES in your Mikunis you're way too sofistkayted for me ;-) - be real interested in your choke/main/air/pump sizes are too!!!! cheers

just wondering, cos I got ZERO replies when asking what jettings they run - whats the bet that they all run the same jets i.e. those supplied as the Mikuni defaults? :-)

yes its confusing when people refer to 280ZXs as 280Zs, but it happens all the time - I know, because I also own one of the few HLS30 cars in NZ. If thats what it is, (doubtful, for reasons others have just given) stick with the injection - a couple of 240s have had the ZX engines including injection dumped in them, and they are an improvement on those wimpy SUs of the 240 (sorry purists) - btw I saw a Zed on this site with throttle-body injection - instant lust!!! - and hey lets see if we can round up a few more kiwis and give those ockers a run for their money on this site!

have you seen the cat lately??

well mine were from an earlier MX5 than those pics Mike , ie the first series (early 90s?) (before they buggered up the styling) I'd be surprised if the mountings changed at all tho - previous tips on the seats referred to just bolting up the fronts and redrilling the rears , and the point of my posting was that it may be even easier! just goes to demonstrate the value of a site like this!

yes, I scored a pair of MX5 seats in the weekend (thanks to a post in this site's history telling me they were an easy fit!) - at $110 NZ (abt $60 US) they were a steal, and I have one fitted already - it was a bolt in! just needed to bend the mounts down a tad, and cut off the seat locating pins My car is a bit unusual being a US import 280Z, but dont see why the australasian cars should be any different. drivers side seat this weekend, once I've washed off the bloodstains! (nah not really, just a bit of twisted kiwi humour)!

I have just purchased a car with a set of 44PHH's - can anyone else running this setup give me an idea of what jets they are running? if you can tell me what the rest of your engine specs are, that would help too. ..or hands up those who have triples and don't know what jets are ?? ;-)

well I'm glad I don't live at 6500 feet in the air, but just in case everyone contemplating triples thinks that they are going to have this problem; the best thing about the side-draughts is actually their throttle response, much crisper than the SUs ever can be, due to the "water -pistols" i.e. accelerator pumps, whose job it is to squirt a bit of gas down the intake manifold when you jump on the throttle. You wil need to experiment with pump jets and pump-rod stroke to get this right. tanny was right about the swapping of jets getting expensive, so try to find a dyno shop that carry a range of jets for your carb. Under normal conditions, you shouldnt have to live with flat spots, stagger, etc - yet so many guys run the carbs as they bought them and accept such penalties as part of owning a "hot" car .

just dug out 17-year-old records for you guys, hope this helps; after several dyno runs I had settled on: mainchoke 32mm main jet 140 air jet 200 em tube .5 pump jet 50 (45 almost as good) idle 50/.1 this was on a 280 engine with 288 degree cam, .33 lift, compression ratio around 10:1