madkaw

Those AFR #s just seem way off. It doesn't seem that the SU's are a good match for that engine combo. Idling around the 10's would foul plugs pretty quick I think. And then to go lean at the upper end is quite a swing. I run around mid 12's at idle and 15's at cruise and 12.5 at WOT. I don't have a real answer for your idel situation, but I know any hangs up in linkage can be a PITA-as stated earlier.

All my body lines were very flush including the hatch front edge to the roof line before installing seals. When I put the inner hatch seal on I swore it elevated the hatch a 1/4". It has settled some, but it had to be the sea.l

It sounds like you installed correctly. The flat part does glue down on the gutter area but I believe it had a cupped part that caught the turned up sheet metal around the hatch. It could be that your new inner hatch seal is so stiff that it doesn't allow thr hatch to touch the outer seals. I never really checked that close, but my car is an hour away or i would. I do remember my hatch fitting very snug and a bit sprung against the inner seal.

I'm jealous

I have my SU's running at 14.8 at cruise and around 12.2 wot. I would think that you could dial them to a leaner mixture at cruise, but wot looks good. My idle is about 13. Your stumbling sure sounded like accelerator pump issue, so it sounds like you got a handle on i!

Another pic from the rear

I believe I have several threads on this since I am running about that same set-up. I have 245/45/17's all the was around on 1" lowering springs-stock struts. s-30 9/71 I think on the rear you will work out perfect. I rub on the inner portion of the wheel well with my +4 offset wheels-8.5inch wheel. The +10 offset should help you clear that obstacle and there should be ample room on the perch--BUT this is on my 17" wheel set-up,sssoooooo it could be different. The fronts are going to be an issue. The +10 will put you right aginst the perch. I had to flatten the perch on one side for the tire to clear. It gave me 1/4" of clearance. You can gain a 1/4 to a half inch by flattening the perch because the springs have that much slop in the perch. You might need a spacer to get you off the perch. This a VERY tight fit with 245's, but looks bad as hell. Again, my car has 17" wheels, so it could be different for you. Also, I am in the process of slotting my rear towers to bring my camber in to clear the wheel well and it is working out well so far. I slotted the strut holes by 1/4" and it helped tremendously and my camber is still only 3/4 degree negative. Hope that helps. I believe I have a whole thread with pictures on Hybridz

Sweet, thanks for keeping up with this thread. I wish i wasn't in the middle of moving or I would takle this right away. I hate oil leaks ---especially on a car I restored, it just looks bad. I want to drive this car to Nashville TN this weekend, but I am concerned with going having this oil leak. It only leaves a spot about 3" in diameter after sitting in the garage, but curious if it could go chatostrophic on me on a long drive. I hardly notice anything on the dip stick, but worried just the same. I don't want to go to TN unless I can cruise the Z!!!!

Thanks, this is what CZCC is all about, making less work for your Z brother! I just don't want to pull that trans again, my rotor cup in my shoulder still hurts. I would gladly pull the oil pan over pulling the trans any day. I actually recieved those seals with one of my gasket purchases , but just looked at them and had no clue since the engine was basically assembled by the engine shop. I will take your advice and get the better seals from MSA or Nissan. I ordered a felpro oil pan gasket a while ago and it's sitting there ready to go.

Well I guess i am on the same path as you because my car is still lealing in that corner, so it must be the side seals---which for life of me can't remember anything about them. So I need to pull the oil pan to fix these??????-someone enlighten me please.

Well he did follow up his 'sick' statement with a very clear -"is that boosted"!

Might give us some more info so we can help. Paint stripper should be left to jobs where the paint is not sandable. In the most part a factory primer will be in good enough shape to feather out and reprime. If you start down the road of paint stripper you will have to go to bare metal and PROPERLY recoat the base metal. Don't use paint stripper if you think it will be faster then sanding, use paint stripper because it is necessary.

:rolleyes:I don't think he gets it

So I have posted here that I bought my daughter a 1981 280zxt a couple of years ago. It turned out to be a fun car for here for a couple of years at college-even amongst all the fixes it endured. Her traveling became too far and often for the car to be her daily driver so we decided to part with it. She didn't mind too much since her replacement is a 2007 WRX, but it didn't compare to the fun of the T-top Z. I put the car on craigslist and had to endure the various low ballers and no shows. Then some guy says he wants to buy it and wanted to drive up from Louisville(about 2 hours) to come get it. He had been looking for that specific year,color. He told me he owned a bar in Louisville(ZANZABAR) and he would bring me a shirt---sure, I'll believe you when i see you. Anyway, he showed and loved the car, and brought me a shirt and drove off to Louisville. I'm still not buying the bar owner bit---but his cash spent just like money! He invited the family down for lunch if we were in the area. Just so happens my son was swimming in at a swim meet at Lakeside in Louisville, so we stopped in. Well the picture tells it all and the Z bar is definetly worth checking out if your in the area--very cool.

So I wish I had more powerful motor and and a better stereo and a rear main seal that doesn't leak, but when I drive around town and some young lad(reminds me of myself at that age) pulls up along side of me and gives me the thumbs up and yells--"That's sick dude", it does make me really proud of the old Z. It reminds me why I fell in love with the design---it's timeless in it's appeal. In the same drive around town I have some other gentleman closer to my age giving me the same thumbs up while he honks his horn. Earlier in the McDonalds some young girl is determined what kind of car that is, because it's so cool. "No it's not a vette, keep trying" I smile! So as I contemplate the prospect of buying a real supercar before I'm too old to enjoy, I wonder if I will get the same enjoyment from my car. So if I buy a 911 turbo, will people be trying to guess what cool car that is that I'm driving? I won't be able to say I did most of the work on the car. I surely won't be able to make improvements or 'fiddle' with the timing. Maybe I should just take those huge payments towards the 911 and use them to continue my Z journey. Boy-think about the SICK things I could do to my Z!!!!!!

I did read a lot of issues with guys not being able to run their caps with these wheels. I bought the wheels anticipating this, but I guess my Wildwoods allowed the cap to work-but I remember it was tight. Haven't lost a cap yet. So just buy some 1500$ brakes and your problems will be solved!!!!

I got to say Steve, you don't f#&k around -do you. You just started this thread over a month ago and your already this far! You need that wideband on this car. I have been trying to really study my wideband on my SU's so I will see the diffference when my triples go on. So someone enlighten me about this stud issue with the shorter manifold. I have the shorter manifold and don't intend on changing this because of my airbox. I have all new studs too:(

235 is probably what I should have stuck with, but I got greedy and thus RUBBING. My car is lowered by an inch also. I did try to remedy the rubbing by slotting the struts on the rear to bring the top in.It almost completely elimintated the rubbing. I did get my car aligned last week and checked out my rear camber and was pleaseantly suprised to find out that I was only 3/4 negative---so time to slot the holess some more to get rid of all the rubbing. The steering is a bit heavy with my 245's up front, but not too heavy, just during very low speed driving.

As far as checking total advance you need to go back to your marks on the pulley. The marks only go up to probably 20 degrees BTDC, so you will need to try and make additional marks up the scale trying to mark them the same distance apart as the first marks. It's kind of hard to get down there and do it accuratley, but as close as you can. Even if you don't get it perfect, it will let you know that your mechanical advance is doing it's job at higher rpm. You need to run up the engine to at least 3000rpm to measure full advance.

Sounds like a cool build and +1 for the l24 revers! I am curious that you didn't go bigger on the cam-if your really into revving. After reading many posts from folks like Jon Morteson and reading about racer brown cams it seems these engines really want the duration and lift from a bigger cam-and they still drive civil. As far as the SU/Mikuni debate, I am starting to agree that these engines-when modified-need the Mikunis to wake them up. i will soon be taking my L24 to the dyno again to see what i can get out of my SU's with my best tune, then the Mikunis(40's) go on and the comparision will begin. I want to see the numbers and don't want to rely on the butt dyno. keep us up to date!!!

Steve, being doing a lot of reading on AFR's and I think I'm going to swap out my SM needles with some stock needles. You might gain some flexibility with your tuning starting from a leaner point. I have a smaller bottom end, but probably a better flowing head, so it will interesting how it will effect the engine. I believe my AFR's are a bit rich when WOT at the upper rpms which would make the engine lethargic to rev. I plan on taking my car to the dyno again shortly and I will bring both sets of needles to see how the HP changes with the 2 set ups. Once I get the timing right for best power i will try and see what the best AFR is for my engine to make power. from what i read the number is NOT the same for every engine, but for the most part folks go too rich thinking it would make more power. I remember when I use to race go karts that had 3hp briggs and Straton engines. After some modifications we would get the most power out of those engines at a leaner state. In fact we use to run them at 7500-8000 rpms at around 450 degrees+ all day! They loved to rev at a leaner rate-the hotter the better----

I'll tell you what I know(or I think I know). The difference in rb and rbr is the spoke design. The RB's have a curved spoke, while the RBR's have a flatter spoke design. Look at Hybridz site and start looking at the guys running the 9.5 widths--those are RBR's and have a flatter spoke. Mine are the 8.5's and were stated as RBR's , but when i got them the spoke was curved like the RB's-which have grown on me and now I'm glad I got them. As far as size, you can fit 8.5's all the way around with some work. I'm running 245/45/17 on the 8.5 +4 and I had to roll the rear lips and also slot the strut holes by about 1/4" for the tires not to rub. The camber change is hardly noticable, but makes a huge change as far as rubbbing. Maybe with the 225 you will be alright. Hope that helps

Just an update. Now that i am actually driving the Z again, I can verify that the raw fuel smell is gone. It is obvious thta the pin hole i found was the culprit. How nice it is to throw the car into a corner and not have to worrry about fuel being in the wrong place.

sorry guys, but my dislexia had kicked in:stupid:. The car did idle at 17.5-infact I really hadn't touched the mixtures since the 3000 miles I put on it last year. maybe that's why i got almost 30mpg driving to Zcon. I did readjust the mixtures to about 14.5 at cruise and idle. I also realized that I didn't sync the carbs at 2000 rpm and they were way off. So I was running at 17.5 and running mostly on one carb---no wonder my MPG was so good!!!! I wish i had 2 sensors, but now I will need to pull the sensor from one side of the duals and hook it up on other side to compare.

Well I finally got my car together and get to play with my newly installed wideband. How sweet to dial in your idle based on your AFR. My car is idling right around 17.5. Cruise is around 16 and the AFR drops as I get into the throttle. I actually thought my car was running rich at idle with my SM needles, but I ended up turning out my mixture about a full turn to get the mixture correct. After setting idle correctly, everything else seemed to fall in line. I still have more experimenting to do, but this is fun.