madkaw

Nice Z!

I think I have an extra one of those-I can look if you are interested

Basically!

I thought I would show what I did for making the fuel enrichments work on my Mikuni's. Most people probably disconnect this system and it is probably wise if you are racing your car. It does make starting the engine very easy. It's just a simple cable pull on the enrichment levers that has two settings-full rich and half rich. You pull the levers to open the enrichment and turn the key, no pumping the gas-infact the manual says not to pump the gas or even touch the throttle. It has worked for me without a flaw. It brings the car to a high idle with the right mixture to keep the engine running. It doesn't seem to dump a lot of fuel in there either-according to my spastic O2 gauge. I didn't get any cable or linkage with the carbs so I went down to the local Autozone and picked up a choke cable kit. It worked out well using the existing hole from the stock choke cables. As far as mounting the pull knob-I always wondered what I would mount in that open space on my dash

Well that cam was originally bigger then I thought. That's a lot of duration combined with .020 more piston height. Why advance the cam?-maybe looking to get Stephen more torque down low, even though he has the pistons to handle the rpm---interesting

Leon, you see where I was going on that. That's a mild cam by any standards-it's also the cam I have in my car(at least close to it, Schneider 274). My head was shaved .12 and my block .005 and I have tons of room.

I was just expressing my opinion, so please take it that way. I hear what your saying too, if your happy with the engine the way it runs, idles and performs and that's all the further you need to know then cool! I guess there is a point you get obsessed with this stuff-my wife thinks Im possessed.

You make the comment about a lot of squish; makes me think that's why Eli went with reworking your cam instead of messing with the pistons. He was looking for that ideal squish zone for these motors and the piston to quench pad was there to help with detonation, so he opted to increase clearance in other ways.

For the small investment-compared to what he has spent-I would think it mandatory to spend the 150-250$ on dyno tune. I learned so much about my motor in one 85$ session. All the timing talk gets verified on the dyno. I was running too much advance according to the dyno. The last 3-4 degrees got me nothing for power, but probably benefits me on cruise considering I don't run a vacuum advance. I also learned that the butt dyno sucks and is very decieving. Like running SM needles on my car, when the stock would have made more power and used less fuel. Once I get my Mikuni's dialed in I plan to make another trip to the dyno for comparison. My wideband should get me close, but these 200$ widebands aren't as good as the 2000$ ones they use at the dyno. The race car driver/dyno operator I worked with said that the widebands are frequently a point off, which could be leaving power on the table.

Beautiful day here in Bloomington Indiana-high 70's and not much humidity Current set up is; pilots are 62.5's at 1.5 turns out. The engine is happiest at this point. NO hesitation or bobbles and AFR's hovering around 14. The engine idles best here and restarts the easiest. The 65's semed too rich and made my wideband go crazy-whic is usually an indication that my mixture is taking big swings. Main jets are 155 and main air are 180. Since my O2 doesn't like big swings it is a bit more difficult to diagnose the main side. Plenty of power, but maybe more is available. Accelerator pumps; went back with the 40's and the engine likes it. There is no bobble when bipping the throttle or heavy tip-in. With the 47's the engine sounded like it was drowning in fuel. Back to more R&D

How do you know the valve timing is set on the #3. Did you have the timing cover off and saw the bright link on te crank gear lined up when the cam sprocket was on three? Your in this deep now, maybe you should consider taking off the cover and start counting links!

I'm a little surprised that the valves came close to the pistons- assuming the pistons are close to stock specs . That cam isn't very aggressive , but good thing he checked. Was the head milled much? Looks like a runner.

Well I had a chance to troubleshoot the wiring. I basically starting removing things from the circuit using a process of elimination to find the issue. The rear left brake light would not work at all, so checked out my combo switch. The white with red stripe wire looked burnt on the switch and that's the wire for the left tail light. So I cannibalized some other combo switches and rebuilt my switch. Bingo- everything works!! I also made sure I isolated the grounds on the marker lights

The fuel sending unit drops in from the top, it is what your feed and return lines go to on the tank. The reason I mentioned this was I had a 280zxt that would just basically die and then later clear up. Long story short, when I pulled the sending unit it looked brand new, but the return side was plugged with what looked like a petrafied bug. Another mechanical adventure in my life with a problem similiar to yours was on a Ford Capri. A girl I worked with went to every shop and paid hundreds and hundres of dollars to try and figure her dying and loss of power problem. In the end it turned out that a mouse had been in her car and had ate away on the insulation on her wires under her seat-where the brain box went. The car would act up and then be fine. So I would make sure your grounds are good-especially stuff around your ignition. I'm leaning towards a wiring issue-unless that sending unit is plugged! It seems that you have covered your basis well and I feel your pain. It seems like you have been diligent in finding this issue, I hope we can help.

WOW- and I thought Ive had car issues- my condolences . Fuel- did you or anyone pull out the fuel sending unit from the tank? The return or sending side could be plugged with junk causing pressure build or no fuel at times. Cylinder head- get a new compression guage and do the test yourself- google the proper procedure. Also, you can borrow a pressure tester from autozone to test for a bad gasket. It works pretty easy by just measuring the radiator pressure while the car is running. You can watch the pressure build and pull spark plug wires one at a time to see which cylinder is bad-- if the pressure is building. Electrical- those years had a brain box for the ignition- right ? I would try and replace it. I think I have one of those that came off a late 73 240 that you can try if you can't find one. Coolant- have you run any type of rust removal product or flush through the block?

I did remove the marker lights from the fender and it had the same symptoms. So I am leaning towards a bad socket in the front blinker is shorting something. Is there a replacement socket that can be used on the blinkers? I have to dig into the assembly to see what's up

So while I was replacing rear main seals and doing a headlight realy upgrade and slapping on some Triples I decided to do that little trick to make my front marker lights blink. I referenced the Daniel Stern Lighting website that shows you how to switch the wires around so the front markers act as blinkers. The problem is that the front left blinker doesn't want to work with headlights on now.The blinkers and hazards work fine without the headlights on. Now I did notice somewhere in all this work I did with my headlight upgrade that the left front blinker wires when moved around was causing issues with bulb-like there was a short. I know I might have already answered my question here, but I searched for possible replacement bulb socket assemblies and couldn't find much. Now I know someone has dealt with fixing these assemblies, so I am hoping someone can give me some insight.

This might be old news to those of you that play on Hybridz, but I , or should I say Todd, figured out my issue. My CAI box backing plate was covering up the float bowl vents, so it was cutting off the fuel to the carbs. I drove her today and she drove alright. My jetting is still off. Right now I have 200 main air jet 60's pilots 140 mains When my O2 sensor was working it showed 14.5 at cruise and sounded great 13+ at idle, but the O2 sensor is more erratic at idle WOT I was 16+-waaayyy to lean On the horn with Todd now. Pic of my CAI that is almost finished except for a good polish. Todd very much liked the CAI and it's got him thinking

Well I see it's been a week since I posted, so I will update. Talked to Todd and he sent me 62.5's and 65's for the pilot jets. Meanwhile I took all vacuum possibilities out of the equation by removing my vacuum log and any else vacuum. Todd once again was a bit adamit about just getting out and driving the car to shake it down. I told him I see no possible way it is coming out of the garage running like this-falling on it's face. Todd did get me the jets in quick fashion as he always does, he really does do a great job of doing business! I threw in the larger jets(65's) right off the bat thinking I was way small anyway, but they didn't make a large impact. Still wouldn't even idle at 1 turn out on the pilot, it took more like 2 and it would still fall on it's face about the same rpm. So now I'm really wondering what's going on. How much am I going to ahve invested in jets before I get this right? So with nothing else much to try I looked at my jet collection and realized I had a set of larger main air jets that came with the carbs-200 main airs. I'm desperate so I throw them in and what do you know, it was much better. The stumble now moved up the rpm band by almost double and it wouldn't fall as hard on it's face. Logically, I don't know what I've done, since I thought the main air jets were not part of this equation-or are they. I will say that one of the brief moments my O2 sensor was working it looked like the idle AFR was between 12-13,( with the 65's) but the damn thing is so flakey I don't know if I trust it. It's another thing to throw money at I guess. I'm kind of missing my SU's right now

So after replacing the alternator did you check voltage-not amps-voltage at the battery while it's running. Low voltage will exhibit your symptoms. Don't take for granted that a new alternator works right, I have gotten bad ones right out of the box. OR, the alternator was not the problem all along. Plus I am not sure about your statement about putting out 50 amps-did he really measure amperage? 50 amps is a TON of amps. Did you have your battery load tested? Bad batteries cause numerous issues that show up in other areas. Start back with the basics and don't assume anything

Triple Mikuni's were advertised as a 18% boost in HP, back in their day.

Hey guys , does the 77 use an oil pressure switch- maybe more wires that are being overlooked

Those headlights look like the ones on my locomotives! Wonder how much HP you loose from the alternator when you turn them on. I have about 1500 amps available so the lights don't effect my alternator -

http://www.wiringproducts.com/contents/en-us/d136_fuse_block_fuse_panel.html Steve, This looks like it, but mine is good for 60 amps I think. The lead wire is 8 gauge and I connected it directly to the alternator

Well I can't wait. My headlights weren't bad before, I was really wanting to keep from burning up any wiring or combo switches. I'm quite sure I will see the difference and I don't won't night time to be a deterent from enjoying my Z