ZSaint

When I bought my '71 last year, it had 86K on. It had the stock metal fan. It seemed to be OK for 34 years. (The water pump was hurting with a LOT of bearing play, however!) I have a '68 Dart with a 6-bladed steel fan. It came stock on the 340 HiPro engine. It is very heavy compared to the Datsun fan. I guess they just had not perfected the plastics that well in the 60's and early 70's.

This is the area on my '71 where the horns mount. Can't help you! I want to buy a cooler but do not want to put it in front of the rad. I cut a hole in the front beside the rad and mounted my coolers when racing, years ago. I do not want to "cut up" my '71. Does anyone have a pic of the Turbo cooler mount? I have searched but cannot find. I know it fits in the wheel well but I would like to see how it is mounted.

My first job was in Seattle at Boeing. We had a payroll 'numbers' game that everyone played. They posted the winner's name the day after payday. I remember one of the winners was a guy named Thomas Hawk. One more... I had a counselee in St. Louis who's first name was TRASHIMA. Now what do you think her nickname was? Trashi! How can these parents do this to their kids? OK... That's enough of this nonsense!

OK, OK! Another true story... We had a guy that raced a sedan named Harold D**k. NO ONE dared to call him Harry. Did the NY guy ever post a pic of his cooler? I wonder where they mounted the cooler. I bet it was in front of the rad. Where do they mount the turbo coolers? In front of the rf tire but where? Anyone have a pic of this cooler? I am thinking of putting one on my '71. I would not like to have it in front of the rad. NE1 do one of these coolers?

I broke the rings when I tapped the pistons into the bores. I did not have a very good ring compressor. The ring would hang up on the top of the block and break! Very painful and expensive!

Subject: Re: Reply to post 'Total Seal Piston Rings' I feel you are correct in allowing the shop to install the bottom end. I have assembled many engines and decided to have my 3.0 assembled by the engine shop. They were very careful and the engine works just fine. They have the correct tools to make certain they do not break the rings. (They do it daily!) You are also correct in not worrying about the torque plate. If you do not take a lot in your "honing" your bores will remain round. It sounds like your bottom end needs to be freshened. No valve seals problem to resolve!

I am thinking about putting one of these on my 3.0. I missed one on eBay a few months ago. I guess I can buy a new one but they are expensive. Did the fellow ever put pics up of his cooler?

I use only the best in my 240. I built it to last a lifetime or two. I cannot think of anything that will give you better bang for your buck then spending the dollars to use Total Seal Rings. I do not know if anyone in your area has a torque plate. I had one built in the 70's and it really paid off. I was gone for nearly 20 years and when I came back I went out to the engine/machine shop and the new owners still had and used my torque plate. That is why I had them build my engine. I would still use these rings even if you cannot find a plate. They will work better than a normal ring. If you do not bore it, the bores will be true from the factory. Are you certain your oil burning is not valve stem seals? That is what normally goes bad in these old engines. I have the original 240 engine with 86K on it and it needs new seals. The rings do not show much wear at all. FYI

Come on guys... Can't we all just be friends?

We used them on our 280 CP race engines. They are very fragile rings. We broke a couple of them during installation when we first started using them. We had a torque plate built for the L6 engine to make certain the bores were perfectly round with the head torqued onto the block. These rings would get about 2-3% leakage. We made some serious hp when we started using the torque plate and these rings. I think they were 1 mm (.040) thickness. We ran 12.5:1 cr and ran .630 lift on our cams. We wanted to keep all of those cc's going out the header vs. going into the block!

I had a '70 that I bought in 1970 that had been wrecked. A guy had hit a post with the driver side rear Q panel and tore it up real bad. He was driving it with about 1 1/2" of rear toe-in. He was going to lose it to the bank so I bought it from him for $1000. I paid off his loan at the bank for $1100. I put a new Q panel on the car and straightened out the A-arm and the car looked like a new one. Now to your question... Yes! It had 50`cold, 40` oil pressure warm when driving and 10-15`when idling. A buddy of mine bought the Z and still has it. He put a 5-speed and a 280 engine in it.

What's 3 months in a life time. Who cares!

On my '71 the water for the manifold came from the steel bypass y-pipe alongside the engine. I used a long pipe to transfer the water to the heater hose. I removed the pipes from the manifold and plugged the holes. It makes a clean engine compartment. I wonder if you could put cold water through this manifold to increase hp for autocrossing or at the strip. You could use a small pump and put a small cooler full of ice on the passengers side. I wonder how this would work? NE1 tried this?

I understand your usage of materials. I would have loved to use lead on some of my body areas. It seals up and does not rust. Oh well, I will just have to trust the modern plastics. I think you are doing the correct thing in using all of the materials available. It will be a nice car when finished.

Will you use lead throughout the car? Will you not use a bondo-type substance anywhere? I had a '32 Ford 3-window coupe that we used lead on in 1959. It worked great! They have perfected the 'plastics' so well that no one uses lead anymore. Interesting that this is what your boys are using. Fascinating!

Kurt: I lived for 19 years in St. Louis. I fear for what you will find when you take the fenders off and look under the battery and look at the floorboards. Can you say "Mull"? They do not plow the roads in St. Louis... They just salt the roads. I had a 510 racer that was rusted so badly we had to use aluminum for the wheel wells to cover the rust. You did get a great price on the car. I hope it is worth the trouble you are putting into it. I will watch for your reaction when you see the car up close in your shop! (I thought so about the battery box! Wait until you start taking parts off the car. Whooha!)

I have a question from a friend. He wanted to know where he could get a set of shocks for his 300ZX. It is a 1985 300 ZX turbo with ECVSA (Electronic controlled variable shock absorbers). Do they make these? Where can you buy these shocks? Can you have them rebuilt? Thanks for the help. I am trying to help this guy out.

It looks like you will have about 9.6 cr with a .040 cut. I have 9.2 and experience no problem using premium fuel. I have HP340 Dodge Dart with 9.5 cr and have had all kinds of detonation problems with it. With the aluminum head on the Z, I do not see any problems with this compression ratio. I think you can get the shims for the head from Motorsports, etc. Are you flattops notched for the valves? With .025 notch you have 8.7 and a .050 valve relief will give you 8.51. I don't know if you have this factored in or not. Maybe the .050 shim will work if you have valve reliefs in your pistons.

I too have the original 240 engine for my '71 Z. It is stored on an engine stand. I did all of the things stated. I also turn the engine over every once in a while to make certain different valve springs are compressed. I think pulling the valve cover off every 6 months and lubing/greasing the camshaft is good. that is where these things rust up after long periods of 'sitting'.

I have removed all such superfulous items from my 240Z. I am on a weight-saving mission. You cannot be carrying around these extra pounds if you want to break into the 15's at the digs. Other items that I have removed are the shift-pattern logo, horn button, rear-view mirror, side mirror, all exterior emblems, washer nozzels, W/shield wipers, etc. I think I have saves at least 10 pounds of weight by removing these items. I need these weight savers to keep the good stuff like the 6" OD stainless exhaust extension, the huge speaker boxes in the rear and the colored lights under the fenders. Maybe next I can remove one wheel nut from each wheel and add a TV antennae. Yeah, thats the trick! WhooHa!

I know it is cool to run the steel wheels but... Nothing makes a Z more unstable than running 5" wheels with 175X14 tires. They are very sqirmmy. How about getting a set of 6.5 steel wheels for the Z and run the stock "D" hubcaps? Having the extra rim width and wider tires really will help the handling. And only an expert will know the difference!

Good thinking. Keep her stock and you will continue to love her. Touch up the valves, maybe do a gasket port job, take .020 off the head, put in some new valve seals and maybe a mild camshaft and there you go! (Check the guides to make certain you do not have too much play) It will be amazing how good a fresh head will make your engine run. You are on the right track!

I bought a roll of the insulation from JC Whitney. It is OK for noise supression. It will attract any moisture you might encounter, however. It has the foil cover on one side and fabric on the other. I put it under the dash and under the seats. I guess the it would be OK for heat. I know these little babies are HOT in the summer. Just roll down the windows and think you are back in the 70's! Whooha!

I had my front and rear bumpers welded up/re-chromed and went to European-style bumpers. I decided to sell the rear bumper guards and rubber pads on eBay. I could not believe how valuable they were. I guess these old parts are getting harder to find.

The tranny ratios are as follow: 4-speed 1st gear - 3.549 5-speed 1st gear - 3.062 You really will have quite a difference in low gear with the 5-speed. I agree with Beandip. If your car has been modified, why not put a 280ZX engine in the car? I have my original 4-speed, 3.36 diff and 240Z engine stashed away in my shop. If I want to show this car as an original numbers correct model, I will only need to re-install these original parts. If you do not have these parts for your car, oops! I also wanted the car to appear original. I like the look of the original 240Z. I even put the BRE front and rear spook/spoilers on the car. I kept all of the original parts in the engine compartment. It is a 3.0 liter but looks like a 240 (unless you look close!) Maybe you are looking at doing something that you don't really need to do. What do you think?