cygnusx1

I am following this thread here too. Mine leaks occasionally and when I searched the topic ad-nauseum a few months ago, I came to dead ends...other than the obvious, which we already covered. One more thought? Vibration and mounting angle might affect it... When I had the chokes out of the carb, I realized that there is no true seal in the channel that runs from the bowls down into the aux venturi. Fuel could easily leak from that interface.

I just stitched together a 1972 as my latest project. Finished it this past April. Even with 200 less horsepower than my 280Z turbo, she is a blast. Yours looks great and should need a steady wave of minor fixes and upgrades to bring it up to speed. The more time you spend with it, the more you will want to drive it. Focus on suspension, wheels, tires, and general repairs to make the 72 a corner carver, with lightning steering response. Resto-mod is the way to go for the best of both worlds. IMHO.

Did he ever get it done? The hardest part of any project is finishing it.

So what do you guys think she's worth now? The car is fully exposed in the thread above. Only two things don't work. Windshield spray, and the clock needs a whack. She drives like a dream.

Yes, done Stelvio pass as a three year old in the back of my parents Alfa Duetto. I have also driven several Apline roads myself as an adult. My life goal is simple enough. Preserve the Z long enough so that upon retirement, we can ship it to Italy to visit the relatives, and go on a thorough European tour including several Alpine passes. I hope they will still sell gasoline then... ;-)

Check the site now. He replied to my post...there is footage of the actual racing. Lower right corner are more videos... 1st edition of RallyStars, event for historical cars in Cesenatico, Italy Some Z footage: http://qik.com/video/7535966 I hope he is OK. The Z never cam back around after the third lap.

I just stumbled across this video taken from a cell phone live two hours ago. Very interesting. It's in Italy but I have no further info. http://qik.com/video/7523042

Look in my signature. There are two links to photo galleries to the history of both of my Z's. If you hover the mouse on the photos, there is an option to show the "original" photo which is very high resolution. You may save and print the high res photos....not for resale of course. ;-)

I have one on my recently installed '79 5-speed and I think it is the MSA kit, with a cut and shortened upper shaft mod. It is short but it takes all the "butteriness" out of the Z tranny. I think I prefer the stock, longer throw, with the smoother action. I might revert. Since I had never driven this particular trans without it, I can't 100% say the shifter is at fault.

I am a very, very, new at bodywork, and I have already learned the hard way, that "speed" and "bodywork" should never be used in the same context. ;-) Let it cure at it's own pace. Looks great BTW.

The piston dish will not alter your displacement. Your displacement is the (new bore area) x (the piston stroke) x 6 Compression has changed. You can calculate all of it here: http://www.atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/calcs/engine%20builder/index.html

Mark, you did a great job applying the protective film. It is virtually invisible. I would not have known about it unless you pointed it out. BTW thanks for the tips on painting my car. They were priceless, and you saved me over $1000 in body shop invoices.

I'm right with you on this one! Your story sums up Z.

Title says 72 240Z but VIN says 12847. Something is off. No? http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Datsun-Z-Series-240z-1972-datsun-240z-4speed-runs-and-drives-low-miles-73k-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem3a59c76aa3QQitemZ250614344355QQptZUSQ5fCarsQ5fTrucks

Arghhh. I am so on the edge of my seat.....I wish I could be there! Please PICTURES, VIDEOS....media.... Greg, go show those Porsche's who owned the 70's!!

Very crafty! General consensus is, use the stacks! You can buy K&N filters in a deeper size and use a longer screw or tabs to hold the covers in place.

You need to run some 2"-3" velocity stacks inside of a 4.25" Deep K&N filter. As a second choice, run longer horns with socks over them. No, not gym socks!

The car is running great right now. Here are the rules/knowledge that I used to set up the Webers by ear, so to speak. My Weber Tuning Digest I assume you have the correct carburetor size for your engine, and a fully functioning, non binding, linkage. Tuning a DCOE is as follows: KNOW THE BEAST Write down all the specs of your carbs. Model Choke size Aux venturi Idle Jets Main Jet Emulsion Tube Air Corrector Pump Jet Pump bleed jet FUEL PRESSURE - 3psi < I filled this one in for you. Make it that. Needle valves THROTTLE PLATE POSITION Mechanically establish the throttle plates, all identically, just downstream of the progression ports. You can do this by looking through the progression holes with a light. (future angle adjustments should be limited to +/- 1/4 turn on the stop screws from here on and in the future for idle tuning) WATER IN THE POOL Float levels (CRITICAL) measure the fuel level in the bowls. Take out a main jet stack and measure the fuel level. Should be 25mm from the top of the main jet hole. This affects transition greatly! higher levels = earlier mains. MIXTURE SCREWS? Turn the idle mixture volume screws out to the spec for your carb model. These screws don't mix fuel and air. They are controlling how much premix of air fuel is going to the engine at idle. BEST LEAN IDLE Establish idle speed by iterating adjustments in the following; Mixture screws/+- 1/4 turn on the throttle stop screw/ignition advance-retard. Repeat over and over to get best lean idle (I do it by ear turn each mix screw in SLOWLY until the motor roughens and come back out SMOOTHLY until it smooths out again). Then turn all the mix screws out(rich) 1/4 turn if you get popping on decel later. (helps reduce lean pop during decel) Stay within the specified TURNS for your carb. If you need to open them up too much, you need a larger idle jet. This is critical to understand because the idle jet is also feeding the non-adjustable PROGRESSION PORTS. If the idle jets are too small or too large, you will get bad progression off idle. REMEMBER ONLY!!> +- 1/4 turn on the throttle stop screw. If you can't get it in that range, you have other issues like vacuum leaks and/or too much timing. If your timing is too retarded the motor want to idle slower, forcing you to open the throttle stops. This exposes the progression ports and renders them useless for progression. Fell free to use more ignition timing to keep your progression ports COVERED! TEST DRIVING Establish proper main circuit to get good AFR's and drive-ability from 2500rpm and up. This is where a wideband is priceless. Experiment with slow throttle movements and focus on steady state and power smoothness above 2700 rpms. Choke Size x 4 = main jet main jet + 50 = air corrector performance engines can have mains and air correctors closer in size. Generally, use smaller auxilliary venturi with larger chokes. Main Jet affect mix from about 2500 and up depends on choke size, and air correctors, fuel levels. Larger Air corrector leans out the mix towards higher revs and can bring the main circuits in sooner. Emulsion tubes are generally "fuel" curve tweakers. Use them later after everything is working, IF you have too. MECHANICAL FUEL INJECTION Accelerator Pump tuning.... I really don't have much advice here except that you can adjust the DURATION of the fuel squirt, and the VOLUME of the fuel squirt independently. These are the variables: pump stroke, jet size, and bleed size. The little jet at the bottom of the bowls is a check valve that feeds the accell circuit called the Accelerator Pump Discharge Valve. It also has a bleed back hole. You can change the size of the bleed back hole, and the pump jets. Generally leave the pump stroke alone. SMALLER bleed back hole and LARGER pump jet will make more fuel go to the engine. Add the two hole sizes together to find your DURATION index. (I invented this. It could be trash theory If the sum of the two is large, duration SHORTENS, if the sum is smaller, duration LENGTHENS. The bleed hole size mainly determines the sensitivity to throttle position changes. Example: A large bleed back will squirt very little fuel to the accel jet, during slow throttle movements. When moving the throttle slowly, the fuel will simply bleed back into the bowl instead of going to the engine. ANALOGY: Fill a cup with water, drill two holes in the bottom sides. One hole feed the engine and the other hole drips back into the sink. Those are your variable. Size of the cup, and sizes of the holes. OK I am sure I missed stuff and there is more to it than that but it's my mental digest. I didn't talk about synchronizing because that is not really a carburetor tuning thing. It's more of "put on clean underwear thing."

E Date-4/25/10 Turned idle mix screws out 1/4 turn each to fatten idle to maybe help progression. 150/F11/195 55F9 32mm 4.5mm 0 accel Bleed. Comments: No test drive yet. F Discovered plastic BB's on top of accel pump weights and removed them. Found faulty accel pump check valve and repaired. Redrilled .055 bleed holes into acell bleeds. Raised fuel in all bowls to nearly 25mm exact spec, measured down from carb body top. The floats are at least 7mm higher than spec to achieve proper bowl height! Date-4/27/10 150/F11/195 55F9 32mm 4.5mm 55 accel bleed Comments: Responds great to heel and toe, idles great, revs nice in neutral, pulls hard at all RPM's maybe falling off slightly around 5000 or so. Best setup yet. Going to try leaner mains and smaller air corr to try for more upper end power. In 4th gear at 2000rpms you can roll on slow throttle, to full throttle, and get zero bog with smooth pulling. If you move the pedal too fast, you get bog. This tells me that the accell circuit is loading up the motor with too much fuel. I will drill larger bleeds in the accell circuit next time.

Upon restoring my 72, I noticed a little melted spot on the fuse box cover. I don't like to see anything inside the car getting that hot so I investigated. I also had a dim right front headlight and figured it might be related. Well not really, as it turns out. HOT FUSE: The metal clips that hold the fuses are fabricated in two parts. There is a lower parts I call the plate, that is riveted to the upper part, I call the forks. The plate is crimped onto the wire, under the fuse box, and the forks are riveted to the plate. The forks are what stick up and hold the fuse. What happens is one of two things. Either you get some corrosion at the wire crimp or you get some corrosion in between the plate, and the fork, at the rivet point. This corrosion turns the connections into a resistor. A resistor passes electrical current and converts some of it to heat! Thus the fuse holder was getting very hot. FIX: I removed the bad holder from the fuse box by pushing back the tabs and sliding it back out of the plastic, which was already loose from being partially melted. I cleaned the metal by soaking it in vinegar for an hour. I rinsed it well, heated it up with a little torch and was able to feed solder into the crimp, and the riveted parts. I pplaced the clip back into the fuse box and secured it with a dab of epoxy. Upon testing, the temperature was no longer hot at all. It was now barely warm to the touch. This was the fuse for the marker lights. ONE DIM HEADLIGHT: I discovered that if one of the two headlight fuses are pulled, you don't fully lose that headlight. For example, pull the left fuse and the left light will only go dim, not off. Same applies for the right side. FIX: But both my fuses were good, as were the holder in the fuse box? As it turns out, simply unplugging the fuse box connectors, and re attaching them fixed the intermittent dim headlight issue. So this time, I re assembled with dielectric grease, after cleaning the contacts with vinegar, and a WD40 rinse. The contacts all appeared clean but they were obviously still in need of attention. The connectors up by the radiator support had already been addressed with a cleaning and greasing. I hope this helps someone out in the future. :classic:

Andrew, 15" on the outside of the rim and each ridge is 1" peak to peak along the centerline of the rim.

In response to how I did mine...I wanted the "wet-look" like you see on the modern Nardi wheels. The first thing I did was to apply some boiled linseed oil. Then I wanted to encapsulate the entire rim in a thick coat of epoxy resin for a tough high gloss look. The resin would also thicken up the rim a little. I placed the wheel flat in a vise and mixed up epoxy resin. I drenched the rim with the resin and it coated very nicely as the excess resin dripped of the back. I looked great until the resin began reacting with the linseed oil! It hardened with hundreds of "fish eyes" and pock marks. I thought the wheel was ruined. I grabbed a lot of sand paper and began the work of sanding off the epoxy to smooth it down. Hours later, I had a smooth wheel again, with a thin later of epoxy. It was no longer glossy. I grabbed a can of high gloss clear spray. I taped off the center and sprayed about six coats of the clear. That worked out very well. I then masked the rim and painted the center with a GM Semi-gloss black from Dulpli-Color. Lesson: Make sure, your stain coat is compatible with the top coat of your choice. Don't be afraid to experiment. It's all fun.

It's at the Dutchess County fairgrounds. Great show, car corral for buying and selling, swap meet, vendors, restaurants, great Hudson Valley drives. The weather looks perfect this weekend! 30,000 spectators! The NYZCC and the CTZCC will be heading up early in the AM. BE THERE!!! http://rhinebeckcarshow.com/