jmortensen

I've heard that before, about the tach jumping all over the place right before it dies. Haven't experienced it, but I have heard of it with the E12-80.

Sounds like the module took a crap.

We're starting to stray, but the whole IDEA of a "hate crime" really pisses me off. Why is it worse to MURDER a minority? It should be equally bad to MURDER anyone. Treating people differently is unjust, didn't we learn that from Brown v Board of Education???

I really have to disagree. When you put a real load on the engine the rings really have to work hard. When you're just revving the motor the engine doesn't have any load, so it doesn't do any work, so it doesn't load the rings (much). This is why we need a dyno to measure output. Because it doesn't make much of any output freewheeling in neutral. Short story. My ex-roommate gets a call from a guy who is frantic. He's just rebuilt his engine in his Ford something or other, and it's smoking like crazy. He describes his break in method: "I let the car idle for 5 or 6 hours to 'seat the rings'". My friend asks to see it. The guy drives it over, and complains it's making NO power and the smoke was self-evident. He tells the guy he wants to take the car for a day and see if he can fix it. After several hours of driving it like he stole it he was able to as he put it "break the glaze" on the cylinders. The thing suddenly stopped smoking and was making a lot more power. He returned it to the guy who built the motor but didn't tell him what he did, because the guy was one of these "you have to be super careful for the first 10,000 miles" kind of guys. But again, I don't think the 30 minutes is going to hurt anything, I just don't think it's necessary and like I said I don't know anyone who has rebuilt an L engine that has done that run in procedure at all.

The original Datsun fuel injection sucks (sorry guys, but it is true). It has a lot of limitations and doesn't take well to modifications like camshafts, plus you have to bring all the air into the motor through the restrictive flapper AFM. If you just want it to do what it was designed for and make mediocre power and have mediocre throttle response then I guess it's OK, although by now most systems have started to get buggy and will be requiring some maintenance. I would agree with Arne's suggestion to use roundtop SU carburetors, or if you just have to have fuel injection I'd suggest something like megasquirt or megasquirt n spark. That way you could keep the intake manifold and set up the rest to suit your particular needs. At least you could optimize it for a bigger cam, exhaust, freer flowing intake, etc.

I would venture a guess to say that not all of the minorities have avoided meth or alcohol in NE. Which begs the question: Is racism that ascribes "good" qualities to a people better than racism that ascribes "bad" qualities?

I don't have any problem with that post at all. If it was set to a song and included a bunch of racist allegories then I might take issue.

The run the engine for 30 minutes at 2000 rpm has to do with mating lifters to the cam. I've never done this on an L engine, and none of the people I know who have built L's have ever done it either. It's a V8 thing. The procedure is outlined in the How to Rebuild book. I've never actually read all the way to the end before and really just used it for a reference but I was pretty surprised to see it in there. I don't see following this procedure for 30 minutes hurting anything, but extended running with no load can definitely cause ring seating problems. For instance, some people will let a car run at x rpm for 3 hours, or put it on stands and have it driving the wheels with no load for 3 hours. Running an engine for a long time at a steady state is a bad idea. The whole idea is to accelerate and decelerate a lot when you're breaking the motor in. That's what breaks in the rings.

It's not the sentiment of the video that is disturbing, it's the repugnancy with which the message was delivered. You want to talk about crime rates and social ills since the hurricane I'll do that all day long, but by portraying ALL of the people in New Orleans as criminals or even monkeys the video loses relevance to the discussion of social ills, but gains relevance to hate propaganda. I bet that video is pretty popular with the white sheet crowd if you get my meaning. I'm not blind to the reality of the situation going on in the south, but watching that video does more to polarize the issue then it does to bring any sort of greater understanding of the situation. I don't think that the intent of the movie was to bring understanding though. I think the intent was to insult and belittle, and that's why I find it disgusting.

Looks like you're missing a manifold piece that goes to the individual cylinders on the outer two carbs. Personally, I'd stay away from downdrafts on a Z, single, dual, or triple.

Are you talking about a gasoline surge tank for heavy cornering? If so you probably don't need more than about 1/2 liter, just make it tall and skinny. Here's an example: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=94570

Can't say I ever noticed mine buzzing.

It sounds like the module went bad. All modules fail and IME the E12-80 is a fairly reliable one. I don't know how they get these distributors to rebuild, maybe they come off of cars in the junkyard. So they clean up the distributor put it in a box and it's "rebuilt". Car probably went to the junkyard because of that bad module. Tom and I disagree on this, but I'd stay as far away from that Mallory as possible. I'd suggest you find another module and see if that fixes the problem. If you really want to go through the distributor and make sure everything is done right, you can follow the instructions on this page and DIY: http://www.jrdemers.com/280ZX/distributor/distributor.html Search and you'll find some recent discussions about modules. The Nissan module is $150 or so I think, but you can hook up all sorts of other modules to run the car, probably the cheapest and most available is the GM HEI, there is a writeup on how to wire it at www.zhome.com. Might try going back to whoever sold you the distributor and see if they'll swap out the module first.

Jim is right. Pickle-x 20 is for STORING metal. It's a surface coating, but not like a paint. It's basically like watered down Ospho. It contains phosphoric acid, but it's less concentrated so you can treat rust without having to wash it off. That is a great feature, but it doesn't coat in a such a way that you could actually subject it to driving.

That makes a lot more sense. Just did a little digging and stock rear springs on the 510 are 320 in/lb and the "Safari" springs are 519 in/lb. Some of my friends who race 510s were running standard front roadster springs which are stiffer, and one ran comp roadster springs which are stiffer yet. Did a little check on these and it appears the comp roadster springs are testing in the 900 in/lb range!!! I think the one guy ended up going to a softer spring after he couldn't get it to work with the 900 lb springs. I think he backed off to the 700 lb stock roadster springs.

The 510 rear springs are not 200 in/lb unless they're seriously undersprung from the factory. That sounds like an aftermarket front spring rate, but the rear is not a coilover setup, and the leverage ratio is something like 3:1 IIRC, so that means probably a 700 in/lb spring would be about right to go with the 200 front in my estimation. Even when you convert them to coilovers they aren't linear rates because of the angle of the strut. When you get into wheel rates then you can make a direct comparison of front and rear 510 springs, but that's wheel rate, not spring rate. If aarc240 is talking 600 in/lb wheel rate then that's really high, although it can be made to work. Takes $$$$$$$$$$$ dampers though, and a hell of a lot of chassis stiffening. While I don't know much about the 240K, the Z or 510 certainly can't handle those spring rates without a lot of chassis work.

I'd replace everything from the header back. Look at the bends from the diff over to the mufflers. Press bent and seriously not good for flow. Might do a dual 2" system with some mandrel bends from JC Whitney and whatever mufflers you prefer. I like the way duals sound, but you might also consider the extra weight they're going to add vs a larger single pipe.

What you want to check for on the E31 is corrosion in the coolant passages. Unfortunately he isn't providing a picture of the bottom so you can't see them. The E31 tends to erode there so that the passages get larger and larger and can eventually cause a leak in the headgasket.

If it is that same car finding a new strut and control arm assy shouldn't be too hard, and installing it is downright easy. If the chassis is bent then I'd say forget it, but I wouldn't completely dismiss a car because it had that strut issue.

You can fit the shortnose diff in the chassis with some custom mounts. A bunch of guys at Hybrid Z have done this, and they've even used the R230 in a few cars now. The short nose R200 that you have should be the same diff we got in the 240SX in the US, only we never got clutch LSDs, only viscous LSDs. My understanding of that diff is that the output splines are the same size and spline count in the open and clutch LSD versions. This is based on the available options from KAAZ and Cusco, which I believe show one LSD carrier for the open and clutch type diff and another for the viscous (it's been a while so you might want to check my memory on that). The viscous LSD version uses a larger diameter side shaft with more splines, and so the side stubs from a long nose R200 out of a 280Z or ZX won't fit. If you have the viscous LSD you'll have to figure out shafts to go from the diff to the wheel. I think this has also been done, but it's not as easy as using the open stub shafts or converting to S130 turbo or Z31 turbo CV shafts with adapters from www.modermotorsports.com. chris, you mention that you wanted to use the "4.1 LSD". The ring and pinion are independent of the LSD and unless you mount the whole shortnose diff you won't be getting the 4.1 part of the deal. You'll have to use the LSD carrier, not the whole thing. The only other issue I'm aware of is the size of the holes in the carrier are different. They changed from 10mm bolt holes to 12mm bolt holes around 85 or so IIRC, so if you're putting a newer carrier onto an older ring gear, you'll have a bunch of slack in the ring gear bolt holes. Some don't worry about this and just bolt it up with the ring gear clocked so that it rests on the smaller 10mm bolts during acceleration. I had some ring gear bolt spacers made to take up the space, basically they are 10mm ID 12mm OD tubing that is cut into spacers and deburred. Just don't make them too long so that they prevent the bolt head from sitting flat on the carrier. Some links for you: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=92808 http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=97827 http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=107996 Apparently there is a difference in the Z33 diffs that makes them incompatible, not sure how that correlates to your Skyline diff: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=107222

I saw that "piro" ball. I wonder how many out there have piro balls on their "starions".

Take a rubber mallet to that floor and you can probably straighten most of that out, except maybe right where the frame rail is.

In the US the 510 carbs were smaller. 46mm for the Z carbs vs 38mm for the 510 carbs. I know a couple guys who run the Z carbs on L20b's, but I wouldn't even consider running the 510 carbs on an L24. The stock size SU's are enough of a restriction.

If you have a small digital camera, pull up the vinyl on the inside of the rocker and stick the lens into one of the holes so that the camera faces front of back. If your camera is like mine the flash and lens are on the same side. Then take one picture inside the rocker facing forward and one facing back.

Nope. I called around to every body shop in town when I was fixing that rust and told them I wanted to hold the pieces of rusty metal in my hands when they were done. The geezer was the only guy willing to show me the metal after the job was complete. I don't think any of these internet sites were around then. Too bad, I'm sure it would have been less expensive and I wouldn't have had to do it if I had access to this site or hybridz.org at the time.