madkaw

Oh its an e-31 head. Well I think you might have an issue that was problematic with the e-31 heads. You definetly need to have the head checked out, but might be worth the effort. Becareful though, you might catch that awful 'while i'm at it disease' and put bigger valves and unshroud, ect.............

It would help to know what e-88 head you have. Like Jon said there are 3 different e-88's out there that all have different combustion chambers. The later e-88's aren't that great and I have read of detonation issues using those heads. The earlier versions are similiar to the e-31 and would be a nice head for a higher compression N/A. I stuck with my L24 with the earlier head, but displacement is your friend for HP. Make your choices carefully and I think you would be happy with any L engine engine as long as you use the right combination and tune it well. ight I also suggest you go to Hybridz and check out the FAQ section on heads. There are some extensive threads on heads and their descriptions.

Thats a funny story!

It's repairable, but it will have to be welded and machined. Time to do a rebuild on the head. Looks like you have an early e-88 which would be worth the effort. Or you can find another head in better shape.

I just spent time on the Chump Car series forum and I freakin love it. What a great series and and a great idea. I have been cracking up reading the rules. I think the Z makes a great canidate for this race scenerio. I just told my wife that I have found a race venue that I can compete in-she's thrilled;)

That will be a tough fix. Try and keep the stock valence since aftermarket sucks. The best fix is as mentioned above- drill out spot welds and remove valence , then repair. Or you might remove gas tank and beat it back from the backside. Sorry, but no easy fix there.

I just measured and 2ft per side is what I have.

I guess I don't understand the question.

Google DIY tune for your wideband. I think you need to concentrate on tune before assuming something else is wrong. Ask me how I know this:) I dynoed my Z at Zcon and it showed rich and a power drop at 5300, but for the most part my plugs looked good-I didn't have a wideband at that time so I was left guessing. It turned out that I didn't have my carbs synced properly at 3000rpm and I was pulling off of mostly one carb-great for MPG-lousy for power. My floats were set up to stock specs, but i had to tweak them beyond that point for best AFR and power. I'm not sure i buy into the spill-over theroy. Any fuel in the filter? You said it ran worse when the fuel tank was low-did this tie into when it bogged on right handers? If your fuel rail is set-up in the stock position, I'm not sure I buy into vapor lock either. Pulling the chokes to enrichen fuel that might not be there(floats) will only help diagnose one aspect of a fuel problem. I know you have looked at the tank, but look again, especially your sending unit return line. I had what looked like a brand new unit and it had a bug or something in it that partially blocked the return line and played havoc with me. It happened intermittmently to make it harder to diagnose. The 150$ or so spent on the wideband will be well worth the investment.

I would say that you can not go wrong with the Nissan gasket. Everything else is a ? A 71 will have pretty good compression, which the Nissan gasket might lower a tad, but you probably won't notice it.

Good question! I have been o such quest recently. I know that you don't want a Victor reinz gasket-fiber board junk. The one MSA sells could be a Fel-Pro, which folks have had good luck with and you can order at your local Autozone and save shipping. I doubt the one MSA sells is a Nissan gasket, because obviously you have searched that and found out it is 150$. I guess it's one of those deals that you might be getting what you paid for. I blew my gasket for no obvious reason and it looked to be a decent graphite impregnated gasket-but from where I don't know-but I do know it wasn't a 150$ nissan gasket. I went the expensive route, but then again I have probably 3500$ ++ in my head and motor. There has been talk of this on Hybridz also lately.

Like I said, the year e-88 head makes a difference. I am probably running close to 10:1 (40cc chambers) right now and have no problem running premium and full ignition-BUT-I have done things to the head to minimize detonation. 200 will a bit tough for a L24 without a big cam-but don't be scared of a bigger cam in these engines-they like it! TUNE! TUNE! TUNE! This isn't a bolt on deal

The trick is patience:) You have to turn and tilt and hold your mouth just right and then you will get it- seriously it is a bit tricky, but they should come off. You might find that the old gas has varnished up your needle and seat and causing the floats to do crazy stuff. Don't forget to check for vacuum leaks, could be an old hose has gotten hard over the years and cracked.

I honestly didn't realize this was a lemons car-very cool! My money is still on floats just need to be juiced up-throw out the you measuring tool:) Make sure your getting 14 volts to the battery. Get her to 180 degrees! I would suggest mechanical advance, but you've changed dizzys. Good luck

a lot of work-but one of the first things people notice

Not trying to be a di@khead, but I couldn't imagine not knowing the temperature of my engine(especially aluminum head motor) and intend to race this car. This is basics and you can't properly diagnose other issues without atleast covering the basics. Just about every tuning adjustment specified in any manual- specifies to warm the car to operating temperature.

The temperature fix alone should make that engine run different and better.

Sitting around like that and then only idling the car is not good. You said you have "good gas"-so you started with fresh fuel? That fuel will be no good in your tank. take your air cleaner off and push the pistons up into the domes of the carbs and let them free fall. I'll bet they stick. If they do, you need to take the domes off and clean the inside of the so its nice and smooth. You have to rotate the float lids to get them off-counter clockwise I think. Check this stuff out first, then get back with us. Oh, and pull your plugs-all that idling-probably with the choke on has probably carboned them up

You might find that your valve guides are coming loose causing the valve to get in a bind-and there's only one fix for that. I had the same thing happen to my early z.

Took the head to a machine shop that had a good straight edge. With the head assembled he couldn't measure straight down the center, but either side of it was FLAT. Measuring diagonally he was able to get a .015 guage under the bar around the center of the head, but not sure if that was anything definitive. New gaskets are on the way and i think I will use some copper spray this time.

Try googling DIYtune. They sell and explain all that stuff!

there tight, but I don't believe they are undercutting the gasket. It is something I will watch for when putting on a new gasket and something I was aware of avoiding when doing the eyebrows--- and a good point Guy-thanks. Would I not see some evidence of a breech of the fire ring? I order some Victor Reinz gaskets today for the head-9.98 a piece closeout on Rock-auto!!

here are some pics

Cylinder read 180 on compression test and the problem seems to be coolant, so what would I be looking for under the valve cover

Pulled off the head today and good news and bad news. Good news is no detonation damage-cylinder walls looked great as well as the combustion chambers. bad news is there is nothing that jumps out at me here as to why the gasket gave out. I can't see anything apparent for the coolant getting into the cylinder. Honestly I haven't been down this road before as far as diagnosing a bad gasket visually. The gasket didn't come off in one piece-some of the material was on both the head and block. The fire rings on the gasket looked okay. I guess I will post up some pics, but number 3 was definitely not burning correctly.