Racer X

That is a score Cliff, five bucks for a useable plate for YOM registration. Did I ever mention that I collect license plates? I have a partly complete birth year run, 1956, also have municipal plates (this includes police car tags), personalized, state graphics, and plates from other countries. Oh, and any plate from 1969.

Awesome way to start the new year Steve.

Sorry, eh? Oh, and thanks.

My first Z has a story, less about the car, and more about the guy I bought it from. First, the car. HLS3041924, build date 8/1/1971, originally red with black interior. In 1979 it began a life as a road race car, running ICSCC and SCCA events in the Pacific Northwest, with a Conference log book. It was in pretty sad shape when I got it, having 8 or 10 layers of paint, and 10 years of thrashing around road race courses in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. It was lime green on the right side, bright blue on the left, and had an orange stripe down the middle. The guy I bought it from is the story. He had a reputation as a rolling chicane, never doing well with the car. Some time before he decided to sell the car he had gotten divorced. It was a pretty messy affair. His ex wife had been messing around with his best friend, who was also the mechanic for the race car. She got the house, and the kids, and was shacking up with the now ex best friend. Oh, and the house was next door to his parents house. Oh, and she had a restraining order against him, and wouldn't let his see his kids. So he couldn't see his kids, and couldn't visit his parents because they were too close to her. The day I looked at the car to see if a deal could be made, he was edgy. Wearing a windbreaker, I noticed one pocket hanging very low, as if it had something very heavy in it. Indeed, at some point during our conversation, he mentioned the ex wife, ex friend, parents, restraining order, and mumbled something about having a solution, and patting the extra heavy pocket on his jacket. We made a deal, I returned the next day, paid him, did paperwork, loaded the car up and went home. A day or two later I saw a news story about some guy in Puyallup that had gone to his ex wife's home, shot her, their kids, her boyfriend, and then himself. I was about to dismiss it as more of the crazy stuff that is always in the news in Pierce County when they mentioned his name. It was the guy I bought the race car from.

Squealing sounds like a loose belt. Check the belt tension.

Don't know if this is related, but at the same time you posted about this AI stuff, clicking through to view member profiles results inthis: [[Template core/front/profile/profile is throwing an error. This theme may be out of date. Run the support tool in the AdminCP to restore the default theme.]]

It isn't really complicated, but some knowledge of how it works, and understanding the components is helpful in making an informed decision regarding the performance of the system.

You vented the refrigerant to the atmosphere? Watch out, the air police will get you. The system should have a specified amount of refrigerant required, the documentation that came with it should tell you how much. It can only be charged using a refrigeration machine made for automotive air conditioning systems. A vacuum must be drawn on the system, and then the correct amount of refrigerant is added. By messing with the system using the $20 refill can with a gauge you haven't fixed anything, and potentially have made things worse. The system has two ports, for each side of the loop, the high pressure side, and the low pressure side. Using a proper dual gauge setup for checking and diagnosing air conditioning systems is the only way to check system pressures. Take the car to a qualified mechanic who has the proper gauges and refrigerant recovery/charging equipment. You don't need a Z expert.

This just popped up on BAT. https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1985-nissan-300zx-27/ Built on a 1985 300ZX 2+2. Who owns and drives something as gaudy as this?

The book report will never be the same.

While not a Malibu, my 95 F150, Eddie, has cost me less than this Malibu cost Mrs. Racer, and I’m happy to drive it anywhere, anytime.

I’m watching with the necessary accoutrements.

The car will be getting sold soon, providing nothing else major goes wrong with it. The granddaughter isn’t getting her poop in a group, so she won’t be getting it.

I counted at least three VW Beetles, two blue, the other yellow, cream or off white.

A bit more background on the Malibu. Mrs. Racer picked this thing up from the estate of the husband of a friend of her daughter’s. She wanted to give it to her oldest granddaughter who is a single mom and struggling to become established as an adult, and a young mother. She paid $3,000 for it. At the time she got it, the granddaughter was crossed up a bit, had another car, no driver’s license, no insurance. She had been involved in an accident, and because of no license, no insurance, and living on welfare, she wound up with a lien against her potential driver’s license (until she satisfies the judgement for the accident, she can’t get a driver’s license). Meanwhile, this car was sitting at our place. Oh, and my daily driver had a timing belt break, and I was driving Eddie, which at the time had his own issues, and had become undrivable. So Mrs. Racer told me to drive the Malibu. So I drove the Malibu to The Big Shed and back for work. Then one day the transmission went legs up. Apparently these things are known for transmission failures, an issue that caused GM to extend the warranty and time. But wait, it gets better. That extension of the warranty has expired, so no relief there. And given the electronic wizardry that modern automatic transmissions operate under these days, I would need to buy an expensive scan and programming tool if I was inclined to replace the transmission. Besides, I really dislike working on front wheel drive cars, and my Legacy is on the lift in my shop, so a transmission swap was out of the question, at least at that point in time. So I was driving Mrs. Racer’s Corolla, and getting Eddie drivable again. One day I came home from work and the Malibu was gone. Mrs. Racer decided to have AAMCO fix it. Um, OK, fine with me, I did mention my disdain for working on front wheel drive cars, right? That was last October. When we picked up the car, I drove it home. Immediately I noticed problems, the thing vibrated vigorously in gear at idle, it shifted randomly at the wrong time, refusing to downshift when needed, downshift when it shouldn’t, upshifting too soon or too late, shifting very hard, and also really soft. I immediately returned to the repair shop and complained. The kid said it has to relearn, and to give it a few hundred miles. Not wanting to be an arse I left, telling him I would be back. Our oldest grandson was killed November 13 when a guy got on the interstate going the wrong way and hit his car head on. The funeral was just after Thanksgiving. His father and stepmother came from Hawaii and we let them drive this POS Malibu . The vibrations never went way, the shifting did settle down, but the vibrations, not so much. So we took it back to AAMCO, and they fussed with it for a week, then called to say it needed a transmission, but it had to be ordered, and for the interim we needed to come get it so there wouldn’t be an issue with storage. Meanwhile, the TPMS sensors in the wheels died. So now the information display pesters us every time the car is started (and the buttons on the steering wheel work when they want to, not when they are pressed by one of us). So after a couple of weeks the transmission shop calls, the tranny is in, and we need to bring the car in. When driving the car in, Mrs. Racer notices a brief error message about the power steering. I do some research, and of course, the electric power steering unit has known issues. After a couple of weeks the calls and says the car would be ready, but when they try to start it a fuse keeps blowing. A few days go by, then they call and say the car is ready. We picked it up Monday, and the guy says the reason the fuse kept blowing is because the battery needs replacing. Really? I’ve been working on cars for a very long time, and never once experienced a vehicle blowing fuses because the battery is in poor condition. I asked what they did to fix the fuse blowing, and the guy said they had to replace the ECM. Again, really? Well, no charge for the ECM, or the fuses, and the transmission was replaced under warranty. Better not cost anything, the replacement transmission cost $6,000. So it appears that the transmission is working as expected now, but the TPMS sensors, the power steering unit, and now the system is unhappy with the airbags and displays a persistent “service airbag” nag. This car is such a pile of fecal matter. But hey, it has a killer stereo.

Upgrade!

I put a new battery in a 2010 Malibu today (kinda weird family sorta thing). I swear, US auto manufacturers should be ashamed of the poor quality cars they produce. The only good thing about this car is the Delco Bose stereo. You couldn’t pay me enough to own one of these things, even with the great audio.

If you are using the OEM setup, there isn’t any option, it is what it is. What is the condition of the one on your engine now?

Yes, the timing can be advanced a bit with higher octane, helping to get a bit more power from the engine. But, one needs to learn the art of reading spark plugs, and make frequent assessments and adjustments, to avoid detonation. In electronically controlled systems, the knock sensor tells the ECM when detonation occurs, and the ECM retards the timing from the initial advance setting. Otherwise the ECM controls the ignition timing based on load and throttle position.

I started buying 100 LL for my race Z to defray the high cost of 110 octane racing fuel. I load up my fuel jugs, head to the local airstrip tat supports general aviation, and fill them up. Works great, at much lower cost. The light grey “soot” in your tailpipe was tetra ethyl lead. There is still a small amount of lead in avgas, although the amount gets reduced more as time goes on. And yes, using airplane fuel in road going vehicles will get you cross threaded with the tax collector.

No, the bracket wasn’t attached during manufacturing of cars with automatic transmissions. Another difference is the shifter opening in the transmission tunnel. If I recall correctly, it is forward of what a manual transmission car would have, by an inch or two. I’ve seen other posts where the swap was done, and the rear portion was cut out, turned around and reattached at the forward end of the opening. Also missing on automatic equipped cars is the stop on the floor/firewall for the clutch pedal.

For a stock wet sump engine, the dipstick is for checking the static oil level in the pan, relative to the oil pickup, and isn’t checked with the engine running. The oil level needs to be adequate so when the engine is running the level stays above the pickup, even while the vehicle is in motion. The design needs to allow that the oil level doesn’t interfere significantly with the rotating mass. The size and capacity of the sump need to allow for enough oil so the supply of oil is sufficient for proper lubrication during engine operation. Keep in mind the oil also acts as a coolant, absorbing heat as it passes through the engine, and dissipating some of that heat through the water jacket, and some to the atmosphere through the oil pan and exterior of the engine block and cylinder head. Some cars even have an oil cooler in addition to a radiator. When using a larger sump, the other items, baffles, trap doors, windage tray are part of the package. A larger oil capacity is added for extra absorption of excess waste heat generated when the engine is built and tuned to make more power than originally configured. Again, as in the stock setup, the oil level must be sufficient to keep the pickup submerged in a readily available supply of oil. A dry sump lubrication system doesn’t have a dipstick on the cylinder block, as the oil isn’t stored in the oil pan, but in a tank, separate from the engine. Usually the oil level is checked by opening the tank fill cap and looking inside.

Sorry, I missed that. The plugs are tapered pipe thread. They would either be tight, or they would work their way out. The resulting leak would not have been characteristic of OK oil pressure at idle that falls off as the engine speed increases. More likely that there would have been little to no oil pressure, and the bearings would have been wiped out very quickly. I suppose it could be calculated. We would know the size of the hole. The output volume of the oil pump can be calculated, indeed the engineering team that designed it had to do so to ensure it would adequately lubricate the engine. Never assume. No. The dipstick is meant to show how much oil is in the oil pan. Yes, the level relative to the bottom of the crankshaft is important, as you wouldn’t want the crankshaft turning in the oil. Every effort is made to keep oil from the sump from coming in contact with the rotating assembly after it comes out of the bearing journals. It is called windage. It is important to know that there is adequate oil capacity to keeping the oil pickup submerged in oil. The basic design for road going engines is a compromise between cost and complexity. For racing engines elaborate compartments with trap doors, and a close fitting tray to “scrape” the oil (it doesn’t actually touch the crank, but fits very closely) from the rotating assembly for wet sumps, or, for dry sump systems, a tray, with a shallow oil pan and several fittings connected to a multi stage scavenging pump that removes every last drop of oil as soon as it falls into the pan. A trap door setup: A windage setup for L series engines: A dry sump pan:

Per the factory service manual, initial ignition timing and engine rpm is 17 degrees before top dead center at 550 rpm for non emissions engines, 5 degrees before top dead center at 750 rpm for emissions engines. Does your engine have an air pump? I’ve stated previously the rule of thumb for minimum oil pressure. Once more: Ten pounds of oil pressure for every 1000 rpm of engine speed. At 1000 rpm, 10 lbs. At 2000 rpm, 20 lbs. At 3000 rpm, 30 lbs. See the pattern here? Again, this is the minimum pressure required. 60 lbs at 3000 rpm is plenty. You made a huge mess when running the engine with the cam cover removed. Oil can, and will, go everywhere. You will likely have oil burning off of the exhaust system for a while. We’ve covered this already. Crankcase capacity is 5 quarts including the oil filter. Put 5 quarts of oil in an empty crankcase, start the engine and run for a minute or two, sun it do2n and while waiting for the oil to return to the crankcase, inspect for leaks, especially at the oil filter and drain plug, as you just had them off. After the engine has sat without running for a few minutes, check the level. If it isn’t at the “full” mark, it doesn’t matter. You know you just put enough oil in it. Make a note of the position of 5he oil level, relative to the high and low marks on the dipstick (by the way, this will work with your old dipstick, you didn’t need to buy a new one). Since you know the distance between the high and low marks on the dipstick, and you now know the actual full position, it should be easy to interpolate where “add” should be.

If an oil galley plug was loose or missing there wouldn’t be any oil pressure, and there would be a huge oil leak. There are two plugs, one at the front of the block and one at the rear, to plug the holes where the main oil gallery is drilled from the front to the back of the cylinder block. The one on the front gets covered by the timing chain cover at the front. The other is on the back of the block, and is directly in front of the forward side of the flywheel (or flex plat if the engine is mounted to an automatic). There are no other plugs in oil passages in the cylinder block. The crankshaft has plugs where oil passages get drilled to carry oil from the main bearing journals to the rod bearing journals. In my experience not many machine shops remove them when performing machine work on crankshafts. Oil is picked up from the crankcase by the oil pump, sent through the forward passage to the oil filter, then goes through the reward passage, some going to the passage that feeds the crankshaft main bearings (and ultimately the rod bearings and some squirts through a small opening on the upper side of the big end of each connecting rod to lubricate the cylinder walls and pistons) with some bypassed to pressurize the cam chain tensioner, and some going to the cylinder head to lubricate the cam journals and the valvetrain. The L series lubrication diagram: