Jeff G 78

Again, flow data shows that the N47 is just as good as the N42 with square ports.

There is nothing wrong with the N47. It got a bad rap before there was flow testing showing that it flows just as well as any head. It has the large valves and steel seats, but it just doesn't have the heart shaped chambers that the P79 and P90 heads have.

This is a great thread. Keep the old pics coming!

Correct, but we are talking two different things. I would never take 0.030" off an E31, let alone more. That's a tiny chamber and a really high CR number depending on head gasket and final head thickness. I was simply speaking to the need for tower shims at 0.030". If it were me, I would have scrapped or sold the damaged E31 and started with a P79 head to get a better chamber shape. For a stock street engine, I'd just pick up an E88 and be done with it.

Agreed Steve. Getting the timing spot on wasn't very hard with the offset bushings.

You don't have to use tower shims. My endurance racer P79 head was shaved 0.050" and I don't run shims. I get to the correct timing with the offset cam gear bushings as described in the "How To Modify..." book. Runs like a champ.

Are you guys using junkyard RX7 pumps or buying new/reman ones? Around here, RX7's are just as scarce as Z cars and they simply aren't to be found in junkyards.

It is missing too much material between the valves and around the seat. It could be welded, but again, heads aren't rare enough yet to justify the cost. What model head is that?

Eddy67, Anything can be repaired, but unless the head is a full race head and that's the only damage, it's scrap and you should look for a new one.

A rusty Zap is worth no more than any other rusty Z. The only Zap that might be worth more is one with all the decals and factory Zap parts. Even then, I doubt it would be worth much more than a regular '77.

I see that there is a spammer in the 2015 ZCON thread as well.

They look great. I like the 225/50R15 size. Back when I bought my Panasports, there weren't many good 15" tires available, so I went with 16's. I think the 15's look better and they won't rub as bad as the 225/50R16 tires.

My bronze seats failed in my race car and I had them replaced with steel. It was only about $200 to replace the 6 intake seats and do a valve job. They did not have to cut them out.

Old Alfas are really cool and quite beautiful, but you will be swearing at the Italian engineers on a daily basis after owning a well engineered Japanese car. There are several Alfas that race in Chump and the only ones that do well are the ones owned by the grizzled old guys who have lived and breathed Italian cars for 40 years. Like Guy hinted at, do it, but not until you can ADD one to the garage next to the Z rather than replacing your pride and joy.

Welcome! Rust is always the enemy. Many of us started out with Z cars like yours and eventually learned to buy rust-free cars instead. You can't go wrong for $800 and it will be a great learning experience, but I don't think I would consider dumping huge money into this particular car. Fix it up cheap and learn everything you can about Z cars from this one. Then, when you are ready, go find a rust free car or a good shell and use all the mechanical parts from this car. Rust is a pain to deal with. You will break bolts off constantly, so get good at extracting the twisted-off remains. Soak everything in a good penetrating oil first and use a lot of heat. They will all come 1/2 way out and then snap when you try to pull the rusty exposed bolt threads through the nuts. Trust me, I've been there and have broken more Z bolts than I can count over the past 30 years.

I still haven't given up on my puller design that I've been talking about making for a few years. I finally got a section of 1" acme all thread and now I just need to actually make the tool. The small, cheap tools will fail, but the right tool, I think, will make the job easy.

I get 404 error when I click my garage or try to search by user name.

I think that's a fairly popular pump in the Z world. BTW, why the name change?

In the past 14 months, I've been hit three times. The first was because some jackass decided to wait his turn in traffic, so he blew past 1/4 mile of stopped traffic and dive bombed in when he saw a small gap. Of course he couldn't go from 50 mph to 0 in 25 feet so he rear ended the car in front of the hole he found. I was three cars in front of that car and I still got hit. His bonehead move wrecked four cars and my neck still isn't right even after months of physical therapy. Luckily, I was in a company vehicle and there was very little damage. The next hit was in the winter and a girl was going too fast for the icy conditions. I was two lanes to her left on the highway and I saw her car rotate 90 degrees towards me. I tried to avoid her, but she still clipped me, putting a small crease in my truck's bed. Finally, last week, I was approaching an intersection in the left turn lane. When I was about 50 feet from the red light, an SUV was turning right from the road I was going to and she failed to turn tight enough. She took the turn at about 30 mph using three lanes to do so and hit me LF corner to LF corner. She did enough suspension damage to total my truck. She was cited and told the cop that she had a glass of wine with dinner. She was below the legal limit, but I'm thinking it had to have played a role. She wasn't even close to making the turn and it was as if she was never in control of her truck. Had I not stopped short when I saw her coming, she would have T boned me right in the driver door. So yes, I think driving has gotten much worse. I see stupid driving every day and I have three accidents to show for it. In two of the three, I wasn't even moving and I tried my best to avoid contact in the third one. At least I wasn't in a Z.

FYI, here are my 16x7 zero offset Panasports with 225/50R16 tires. And here are my fenders AFTER almost 10mm of flange trimming. To check clearance, I removed the springs and went through full suspension travel. I trimmed until the tires just barely quit rubbing. If you look at the tire shoulder, you can see what happened before I trimmed the flanges. The rubbing peeled a strip of rubber right off the tires. :tapemouth

Hey Robert, Catching the ZX in the background was just a coincidence and there were likely lots of them around as it was only a few year old car at the time. The photo was taken at my sister's apartment complex, so I had no idea who owned that car. I was trying to post old photos of a few more old Z's I had, but the forum crashed last night as I was uploading them. I'll try again tonight.

OK, I finally dug out my old photo album and scanned a few pics. Here is my first Z taken in 1984. I bought a pair of Z's for $600 that had been sitting in a field with the hopes of making one good car. They were an orange '72 and a brown '76, but both were way too rotten to save. I learned a ton stripping them and working on them and I still use the carbs and wheels on my 260Z race car. I took this pic on the day I brought them home, but I had already swapped a few body panels between them as you can see. After I gave up on the two rusty cars, I drove to Atlanta from Ohio in the spring of 1986 and bought a rust-free auto trans '76 280. Here I am washing it the day I bought it before I drove it 750 miles home on expired GA plates. As soon as I got it back to Ohio, I swapped the auto trans for the 4 speed I took out of the '72 and I removed the headlight covers and Libre copy wheels. I still have both the headlight covers and wheels in storage. I plan on painting the headlight covers and putting them on my BRE tribute race car and if anybody wants the wheels they are for sale. Otherwise, they will probably stay in storage for another 27 years. Wow, I was about 100 lbs lighter back then.

Go with +6mm offset if you don't want major rubbing. I run 16x7 zero offset Panasports with 225/50R16 tires and I had major rubbing. Another option is to go with the 225/45R16 Dunlop Direzza ZII tires. They will be slightly shorter which will give you more clearance. Like Guy said above, you will still likely have to play with the front valence, but zero offset will be much worse. There is a thread here that I think was started by Guy (Diseazed) where I posted pics of what I had to do to keep my rears from rubbing. My fronts still rub badly while turning in reverse.

Cool thread Guy. I'll have to find and scan my old pics.

What brand of belt(s) did you use? I tried a store brand belt once on my race car and it kept stretching during the first practice session. I tightened it and it worked fine for a bit and then start squealing on start-up again until finally failing completely. Luckily, it all happened during practice. I now only use Gates belts.