AK260

And we’re back in the playground again, aged 12!

I use one of these .... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Top-Dead-Center-TDC-tool-Timing-Gauge-14-mm-thread-high-quality-in-best-price-/201984173362?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286 For a stock engine with dished pistons and no head shave you may have to make a new longer rod for the end of it - I can’t be sure but good to be aware of it. Not sure about your carbs but my choke cables not only move the jets down but they have a slight effect on the butterflies. You seem to be experiencing a lot of strange issues, so the idea is to remove anything that is potentially contributing, until you get to normal idle! Then connecting things back to how they should be “one at a time” and testing at each stage. That way if the revs rise when you put back, say the choke cables, you know it’s them to blame / sort out. With these things it’s often just the simplest thing that you eventually discover, keep at it, you will find the culprit!

Agreed with Sean! Had that MSA one on my L26 before the Z-story and it did a great job on a mostly stock engine (with a ported head) that burned a fair bit of oil! I loved that torque curve!

Sorry - wrong post

Spot on! In some respects journalists have become lazy in checking the veracity of the official blurb as distinct from the usual regurgitation. The first casualty of war is the truth! cant recall who said that now but I believe it was an American politician. What I’ve learned to do is to stop myself being outraged at the stupidity of news and stop looking at what is being said as opposed to “why” it’s being said. If The Donald taught us anything, it was that by filling the mainstream media’s time with reporting outrageous things, they aren’t looking at what else is happening in the background that should have merited their scrutiny! Case in point, his outrageous tweets about the murder of Jamal Kashoggi was a distraction to keep journalists busy and their eyes away from looking into / focusing Ivanka sending messages and conducting government business on here private email. He even admitted as much later on. What is it he used to say? Lock her ....

Interestingly when Norm Chomsky was asked about what outlet is best for accuracy he stated that they all have their limits but he liked AP, WSJ, NYT and AlJazeera for accurate reporting. Again not many are aware that Al Jazeera was originally set up by disgruntled BBC journalists who wanted to accurately report without the constraints laid upon them by the beeb. But now they are constrained by the Qatar government so even their reporting has certain no go zones! Me too, but are we also blurring the boundaries between Fox & Friends and Fox News? I don’t really watch them but I figured Fox News is a little less biased. Didn’t Fox acknowledge that Fox & Friends wasn’t real news and was supposed to be classified more as entertainment?

The cleaners came just as I was planning on sitting at the laptop, so i HAD to leave the house and socially distance myself in the garage Fixed fuel sender so that the float is now pointing left instead of right! Filled up with an eye watering £80 of Esso 99 then went for a drive. Incidentally that’s their new fuel without ethanol! Next time you Yankee boys are complaining at the pumps, spare a thought for the rest of us paying $2 / litre and financing gold Lamborghinis in the Middle East oh and our thriving government with close to 80% tax on fuel! With the fuel sender showing F now, I gave the car a bloody good thrash and then sat in a lay-by idling for 10 mins. Normal driving, temps are now at 1/4 across. Idling in the lay-by, it doggedly stuck to half or very slightly below (which is 85c I believe). Then I turned the engine off for a couple of mins and let it heat soak. When started up again, the gauge was just past half way. In under a minute, it came back down to a half! Ambient temp today is 17c here. Would be interesting to see if it does the same at 25c - 30c. The good news is, when I got home, it was back down to 1/4 and I could stop the fan with my fingers without having them chopped off!! I tried cardboard and ended up with a bit of a mess. ;) So the Aisin clutch is definitely working per spec!!! Yay!!! It’s the first time in my Z ownership that I have a fan clutch working as it should! It does however idle with a little more vigour than my other one, so there is noticeably more airflow through the rad. The electric fans will now take a back seat until I sort out the next set of issues like lights working reliably on both sides of the car or dealing with rough idle / part throttle issues etc.

Group Harrington make S/S bumpers and may be able to do some “spare” rubber round thingies for you if you contact them. https://groupharrington.com/product/datsun-240z-and-260z-bumpers/

I’m going to steal some of these ideas for our webmaster to think about! That’s a much nicer view than we have. [emoji106] Just been out for a quick one and sadly ran out of fuel about a mile in !!!! I need to pull the new sender and work out why it’s sticking at 3/4 - I suspect that last kink I didn’t fashion into a Z shaped one is the issue with the float pointing the opposite way probably sticking to something in the tank (it was a Datsun 620 truck one I modified to fit). At least now I don’t have to drain the tank to do it! The odometer was showing 165 miles since my last fill up, I suspect the lead in my right shoe is the cause of that one! After being rescued by a neighbour with a Gerry can, I left it idling for 10 mins in the garage which normally would pull the gauge well past half way and close to 3/4. Well this time it only made it 1/3 of the way across and it wasn’t moving any further. So at least it seems my heat challenges are looking more resolved but I need to do this again on a hot day. The Aisin appears to be constantly engaged as it feels just as vigorous cold or hot! Let’s let it heat cycle tonight and see how it does tomorrow morning. But at 1/2 speed due to my just under half sized ATi crank pulley, even if fully engaged it’s still the equivalent of 1/3 speed on a normal sized crank pulley and I can’t hear it. So it shouldn’t be costing too many ponies if I choose to live with it! ;) There is a nice bit of airflow if I put my hand on the front of the radiator, but there is an ENORMOUS dead spot in the middle of the fan, for obvious reasons! So when I fit the twin electric fans, I will ensure the flow in that area is improved.

That’s great to see! Normally when I use emojis from my iPhone on our other forum they don’t work, so I assumed they would t here either! Tapatalk is a forum app for the phone and I REALLY like it and prefer it to web based forum UI. The home page for me looks like this and allows me to quickly scan the forums I’m interested in / registered with without putting in login details every time. Sadly it was dropped from the UK Zclub forum which means I’m less on there than I used to be - as the mobile optimised web interface isn’t as easy / user friendly to use. :(

That’s great to hear! I wish the thumbs up icon on Tapatalk worked on the web view! But if it did, here it is ... [emoji106][emoji106][emoji106][emoji106][emoji106]

Duplicated post ... grrrr!

That’s a great idea! In fact, thinking about it more, I would imagine a lot of modern cars are using Thyristor based SSRs for modulating LED lights, motors, self-dimming fog lamps used with steering inputs etc. Will have to have a good look at that. Dropped the Aisin clutch in last night but at 22:00 it was a little unfriendly to warm the car to full temp - to quote a wise man[mention=23570]siteunseen[/mention] “I have neighbours”! Aisin V the other one I bought a few years back for double the price which never seems to engage. A word of caution, the Aisin had a flange that is more than 2mm thinner than the stock clutch, enough to make my fan blades connect with the bolts on the front of the ATi damper - so more spacer washers went in between the fan hub and the clutch.

Hello! Nice car !! Any more photos? To me, that looks like the wrong bumper. Being a European car, mine goes all the way to the end of the “cavity” you mention. But the one the PO had put on mine was like yours and was from another market where they had a rubber insert behind the bumper. A few more photos of your bumper would help us better identify the issue for you.

That’s great to hear!!!

Wow! That was unnecessarily defensive over something so simple [mention]Koni Lee[/mention]!! Not to mention completely unexpected from someone who normally does a great job of being a “real person” engaging well with his customers. Whether Koni has or hasn’t had this issue in the past (or indeed failed to record it on some system) is frankly irrelevant. The fact is, it HAS happened and what people are more interested in hearing about is what Koni will do to take it seriously! Not for you to just gloss over it / brush it away with historical rhetoric and an attempt at “levity”. In the last 40 years of spannering cars, I’ve been a loud advocate of Koni and the quality of its products. The ONLY time I’ve had issues with turning a nut has been with either very rusty old ones, or nyloc nuts - typically on stainless steel exhaust clamps and now your shocks. Putting your response to one side and looking at the facts: 1. Unplated metals of different “nobility” WILL have a reaction to each other. 2. Heat (especially in threads) accelerates the issue. 3. Nyloc nuts generate a lot of heat on the threads especially when being unwound. 4. This has happened more than once and on the same shocks / nuts supplied by Koni - regardless of the number of instances. It’s a bit like saying: in the last 28 years I never murdered anyone your honour so this instance must be just a freak incident that should be ignored. If as you say you’ve never had this issue before, then surely you should be extra concerned that it has happened, sit up and take it seriously. Koni’s response would merit a great deal more respect if it was to acknowledge it happened and to properly investigate it - rather than derogatory remarks (however in jest) about the client or just spouting unnecessarily defensive vanilla corporate statements. The people who typically do that are aware of a problem they are trying to hide - which I don’t believe to be the case here and why your post put some of our noses so out of joint. I and many others, have been very impressed with your responsiveness and engagement with the community to date and value it greatly. Please don’t let the side down with responses like that again. Take the issues seriously, we’re not idiots or inexperienced 17 year olds playing with our cars for the first time. A better response would have been to have requested those nuts and shocks to be sent back to you for further analysis. Maybe you do have a dodgy batch / supply QC issue that you’re not aware of. What better way than to get your hands on the “field tested” failures? Moreover, if you think the customer is likely to be a “nut” and not aware of potential issues with nyloc nuts, you may wish to consider including a warning in the instructions and / or include a small sachet of anti-seize; as most “enthusiasts”, unlike us more experienced mechanics won’t have it on their garage shelf.

Well said!!! After my galling disaster with them on my brand new Konis I ditched the nyloc and went back to the original ones that come on the Z. I was in a hurry to get them off and was merely using a socket set quickly before they welded themselves onto the threads. I do wish Koni would take onboard the feedback and change this - its a lovely product with what I consider to be an unnecessary wart!

Why can’t you be in the UK!?!! So inconsiderate!!!!!

Let me get it working safely first and I’d gladly share it. (I’ve melted one FET already with too small a heat sink - good job I have 12 of them :p ). Edit: I discovered today that my Q5 uses one of these right behind the fan! I may just get one as it’s beautifully packaged! I strongly suspect they have solid state electronics in there given the heat sink arrangement! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FRONT-RADIATOR-COOLING-FAN-CONTROL-UNIT-MODULE-8K0959501G-For-Audi-A4-A5-A6-A7-/284091597931?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286

And one last thought: that kameari distributor is supposed to be set at 35-38 degrees at 4k rpm!!!! Which is a lot of timing! I know people using it typically gun for 32 - 34 @4k to keep it safe. So if you want to check your timing, check it / set it at 4k and then see what it drops to at idle. http://www.kameariengineworks.co.jp/L6-racingdyisubihaisen-2.pdf

Thanks dude. I also like mech fans! Unless you lose the fan belt, they never fail completely and look period. I did start by trying to restore the original clutch but the mechanism has rusted solid. The next clutch is factory sealed without bolts to open - I would have to drill it out but even if I tapped it and put bolt in, the mechanism doesn’t want to work until well over 100c - by which time it’s way too late. The third (Aisin brand as yet unfitted) is super sealed and even harder to drill out if I wanted to! The oven test last night didn’t yield a positive result so next I will test it on the car maybe a little more violence in spin will make it engage. I will absolutely have the electric fans regardless, as supplementary fans and an insurance policy for that very hot day. Also reversing them for a few mins after shutting down will reduce the heat soak on all the rubber / wiring under the bonnet on that hot day. I have temp sensors ready to install and experiment with around the engine bay, so again watch this space. In the meanwhile, this is a great read ... https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/xjs-x27-32/under-bonnet-hood-temperatures-166641/page2/

“I have neighbours” ... Brilliant! :D I bought 2x very good quality 10” fans from a UK club member for £20 and connected one up to an old 12v battery at the back of the garage today - wow!!! At full throttle, it does sound like a 747 but shifts more air than the rubbish Aeroline 16” one I just returned to eBay! So both of those at half speed are going to cure my ills with fan clutches and be relatively quiet in operation. In fact, I have a dual MOSFET circuit I built to drive as a purely analogue and constantly variable speed fan set up which will reverse direction for 5 mins when ignition is off and the car is hot to reduce heat soak. Having said that the FETs get awfully hot and I’m going to experiment with either having the heat sink in the air flow or the PWM driver also sitting on the bench. PWM is a way more elegant control mechanism, but if you get the frequency wrong you can fry motors easily with back EMF issues. I also have a solution in mind for that ;) so watch this space if I ever get enough time to do it all this summer!! This is what it looked like here yesterday @ 08:00 And the same place 8 hours later!!

You are too kind Mr Site! That is good advice sir I should be less fool hardy!!!! I was playing hot potato with the fan clutch at 90c while holding it in a dishcloth. But I still couldn’t get it to go hard, so I’m wondering if it needs to be rotating at speed for it to engage!?

Right then chap, let’s take it one at a time Operating temp: basically you need it to be at a temp where combustion happens efficiently. I speak Celsius and don’t fully comprende F. 200F I think is 93c and that is fine. As long at you are over 170F (70ish c) and below 95c you are in the range. And I’m talking water temp. Also remember that water temp is not the same as oil temp. Typically the oil takes another 5 or so mins to come up to temp. There is in fact a raging debate on some sites about which end of the rad the sensor should be. Personally I like it at the hot end as I want to know what is coming out of the engine without taking any cooling effect into account. But if I could have both, then that would be fab! Then again, I’m a data junkie ;). A lot of modern cars measure both. As mentioned and probably lost in my very verbose replies before - disconnect the choke cables when doing any of this stuff. Also wind back the “fast idle screw” so that you can see a gap and that it has no effect at idle. See markup below (not my car). Or better still just disconnect the accelerator ball link while you are doing this job (the bent one in the photo above). We need to remove from the equation the things that could be interfering and focus on the carbs themselves. The lift pin test is a subtle thing so it takes a little practice to get used to it. You only need to lift a tiny amount. Too rich will also stall your engine. So for now, assuming your carb needles are stock N27 or SM, just take the mix screws down 2 turns. That should be rich enough but not too rich. The AFR gauge will help a lot. Then start closing down the idle screws equally on each carb - very gently - until the revs come down to an acceptable idle. The butterfly adjustment screws only need to move a tiny amount for a large effect on idle speed. Crank pulley marks can be off - how are you planning to determine TDC?

Not sure about how much longer or better as I only do about 1000 miles a year! But the responsiveness of the engine and its rev happiness are wonderful over stock! And that’s without loosing drivability. The other thing I like about the fidanza is that on your next clutch replacement, you can just screw in a new flywheel face - no need to resurface.