2ManyZs

Hmm, this doesn't sound so good.:mad: Try this, pull the plugs and turn it over. Still making noise? Try turning it over by hand. I'm just grasping at straws here, but it might be the starter. Either it isn't engaging the flywheel completely or the flywheel is losing teeth. It will make an awful racket it it is skipping on the teeth, hard to tell without hearing it, but keep yer fingers crossed, maybe it won't be so bad after all. If you had it running before without any funny noises this would be my first guess. We'll keep our fingers crossed:rolleyes:

Sorry, guess I had a serious case of "cabin fever" last winter. Took me a while to find a good Z site and I guess I got carried away huh? You should be glad I can't type as many wpm as EScanlon, or I'd be up to double that number by now. Now that summer is finally here, my postings are going to be fewer, all this Z talk has me motivated once again. So my thanks goes out to everybody for giving me the desire to get my butt back out in the garage and get my 71 finished as soon a possible. And for everyone who has been answering the questions I wasn't sure about, keep it up, I still have more to learn. BTW guys, if so many of you didn't live on the "wrong" side of the country, I might have been able to turn my hobby into a business...

The calculator should be in the downloads section. That's where I got it from anyway. Lot of fun to play with when there's nuttin' else to do. BTW, I wouldn't think the 4 cylinder L series rods would be anywhere near strong enough to put in the L-24 thru L-28. Not only that but you would run into piston problems. Not sure if the wrist pin is the same on all L series or not.

I tried it in the calculator and got to 8.9 with an E-31 and dished pistons with a 1 mm head gasket. Could go a bit over 9 if you had to deck the head 10 thousandths to true it. I think the easiest bet will be the flat tops. Ought to be able to run 91 octane without too much trouble if you keep it close to 10:1. Most of the new cars on the road now are running near to 10:1, but with the old engines without the benefit of the new computer systems running the ignition, injection etc. I think I'd go to 93 octane if possible. There is always the idea of using a custom piston (pricey) with a lower pin height or a higher dome.

Well, Scott Bruning sold out ZTherapy not too long ago, so let's hope the new owners keep up with his quality of work. And yes, their SU's are probably the best and easiest thing to upgrade a Z. If their carbs can supply a 200+ hp race motor in a Z, why spend the extra money on triples and go through the hassles of tuning? Now if the motor is really wild, then the triples might make more sense, but how many people go that far on a street car when it boils down to the bottom line? BTW, MSA still sells the bare 4 barrel intake for those people who still want to go that route.

Congrats, sounds like you now have one less project to do. BTW, good thing you stated that that is you in the pic, some people might have mistook you for Bill Gates, not that you are a bit of a computer nerd, but you do look a bit alike in that shot. Too bad we all can't have his money if we looked like him. We would all go have our hair cut and be buying up glasses huh? Is it idling rough after a cold start? Did you check or replace the cold start valve (injector) in the front of the intake? It may be loaded up with the same junk as the rest of the injectors. It's basically your choke on the FI cars.

Hmm, good question. You could easily ring up a hundred bucks in parts if you are going to do a serious tune-up. Hard to tell what the labor rate is in your area, could easily end up being double the price of the parts. If you aren't sure about the carbs you could just have him do them and do the rest yourself. Adjusting the valves isn't too difficult, swapping out the tune-up parts is fairly easy and you would end up saving enough to take the family out on the town for a weekend get-away. Too bad you live just a little too far away, or I would volunteer to give you a hand doing it here. I'm pretty rusty on the carb tuning but with all the postings here I bet we could get it pretty close. I guess it boils down to what you are willing to pay. I'd say you would be looking at close to 300 bucks at least if he is any good and charges accordingly.

Oops, too late huh? Meant to remind ya in the first post, just got in a hurry. Hmm, my camera is charged, too bad I can't get the darn thing to take a pic in focus. Guess I need to play with it some more, without messing it up! :eek:

You can get the adjustable camber bushing for the rear control arms which will give you the means to adjust the toe setting on the rear. As far as the front end goes with the wandering problem, some of it will depend on the size and width of the tires you have on the car. You could try to run it a little closer to zero toe if you are running a fairly wide tire. Camber change after installing the lowering springs will also contribute to it. You didn't say anything how your camber was in the front so I'm just guessing here.

Just as a reminder Mike. When you take the clips off the plugs on the injectors don't pull on them, use a pick or small screwdriver to GENTLY pry them loose. They get very brittle, and if you try to force them they will break and then it's time to buy new ones. Luckily MSA has replacements if you need them, plus the clips if one "flies" away. There are two o-rings that go on the injector, the small one on the nozzle where it mounts into the intake, and a larger one where it mounts into the mounting block. Don't forget to check or replace the short lines on the rail at the same time, if you are going to the trouble of changing injectors you may as well replace these at the same time. Use fuel injection hose on them as they do have quite a bit of pressure in the rail. If they are bulging at all it's time to replace them.

Sounds to me more like it could be a problem in the cold start circuit. Water temp switch, thermo time switch or the cold start valve (injector), or it could be the air temp sensor in the AFM. It might be either only working intermittantly or it could be just that the one time it either over enriched the mixture or didn't richen it up at all. There is also a cylinder head temp sensor that's involved too. UGH. Lots of things to check. You didn't say what color the smoke was, I'm just arse-uming it was black? Just in those few things, between all of them it's about 300 bucks for new.:mad: I'd check the wire plugs to all of them first, then using the service manual as a guide (hopefully you have a factory manual) you can check all the switches operation in the plug to the ECU. I'm pretty sure it tells which pins or for which. Sorry, I sold the 280 the other day so I don't have the 75 service manual anymore to use as a reference.

Dave, are ya trying to say us "older gentleman" remember things that are only a picture in a magazine to some of the younger "Zedheads"? I remember the Libra wheels quite well, my 280 had a set on it when I bought it back in 87, then I used them on a 82 200sx for a while, since they were 5.5 inch they worked great and looked pretty darn good on the 200sx. BTW, I even now where the complete set is hiding, I have "horse traded" them back and forth two or three times to the same guy, (the same one bought the 280 from), in fact I think they were traded for the same part I had originally, then when I found out the part was NLA, I made sure I got it back. Guess that means if Royce was a tot, I must have been just a "little bigger tot". BTW, the AM wheel that is a close copy of this is the 200S, not available in 14 inch, and not available in 4 lug either. They do look good since they are a fully polished wheel, shame they don't have one that will fit a Z anymore, at least not the early cars.

100 sounds a lttle high to me, 75 sounds more like it. Did you price the replacement injectors at MSA? There old catalog lists them for 50 each, so I'm pretty sure they have gone up some but wonder how much. Never heard of that brand from NAPA. Wonder what brand Auto Zone or Pep Boys (or any other chain store) could get if they can get them at all. Just be sure they have the O-rings with them, or you'll have to buy them seperately! I seriously doubt the injectors will provide much performance upgrade at all, that would come from a big throat throttle body or ECU improvements. Course there are the injectors for the ZX Turbo but they are in excess of 150 each.:eek:

As far as the calipers go it's an either/or on the model they come from. Seems to me I remember reading somewhere the 4 Runner caliper may have had a larger piston, but don't know for sure. I guess the shim could be a flat washer if you had too, not sure how thick it needs to be. I guess that's something you have to find out when you do the swap, since there probably is a little variation in the calipers etc.

I never said the gears were cheap did I? I know, I bought a set for an R-200 years ago and they were expensive even in 1990. That's why I suggested trying to find a complete diff out of an automatic. You may be able to find one from a 77-78 auto since I believe they may have had an R-180 in them, not sure if they used R-200's and R-180's in the later years of the 280 but I know for sure they had R-180's in some, if not all.

Well, you could check it out, you may be able to buy the ring and pinion for a 3.54 but right now I'm not sure. There used to be a big selection of ring and pinions (new) that you could purchase, but the supply seems to be drying up. Try www.nismoparts.com first then widen your search to include all the aftermarket parts suppliers. Then buy according to who is the cheapest.

A 4.11 would be way to low for a 4 speed, you would be turning 3k+ rpms at highway speeds. That would get annoying really quick, and kill your gas mileage too. You might want to think about a 3.54 out of an automatic Z. It will increase your rpm's a little, give you a little better acceleration and will be a simple bolt in if you don't want to change to the 5 speed.

What really annoys me about Nissan turning their back on us "Zedheads" and discontinuing a lot of parts we need is the fact that we are being put out in the interest of this 350nadaZ. They want us to remain loyal to the brand yet they continue to bombard us with cars that are no where near the simple, stylish, affordable sports car the early Z series was. They say the 350 is an extension of the Z yet it is not affordable to a very large segment of the market, it's not as elegant and stylish as the early car, and it sure as hell isn't something the average person can work on in the comfort of their own garage. That's why I said that in ten years or so the early cars will be in short supply and the prices will reflect that. Everytime a car needs a part to repair it, another car will be scrapped to supply the parts. There is really a lot of parts still available if you get right down to it. There are a few important body parts that have been discontinued and that is a shame. But if you look at other "cult" cars like the early Mustang, a huge percentage of their parts are coming from the aftermarket. So, hopefully somewhere down the line someone will see that there is a large number of these cars still in existence and start making some of the parts we need, whether in the US or Japan. It doesn't really matter, as long as they get made. It would be interesting to do the research to see how many Z cars (before 79) that are still on the road or the track. Maybe if someone were to find out and show this to Nissan they might re-think their position on abandoning the tooling for some of these parts. Perhaps they would license the tooling out to a supplier so that parts could be made available. I would be really surprised if there weren't at least 150,000 cars still registered just in the US. And that is not counting the later ZX's, since we are primarily concerned with the early Z series here. One of the great things about being a "Zedhead" is the fact that it's not a "class" only car. Nearly everyone can afford one as the membership here will attest too. We have owners ranging in age from 16 to 60+, and all up and down the wage scale. You don't have to be rich to own one, but it sure would help. Perhaps someone should get an address for all of us to send an e-mail to, someone up the ladder at Nissan, and tell them we want them to license the tooling for these parts we desperately need. Who knows, maybe we would be able to buy a few more parts in the future. If not, then the prices of Z's will surely rise as the numbers of cars goes down due to there being so many cut up for parts. I'll stop now before I get a blister on my fingers.......:tapemouth

A 4.11:1 rear in a stock 240 would be a perfect choice if you put in a 5 speed out of a ZX or even a 280 Z. You will get a big increase in the acceleration in the lower gears and with the overdrive you will even end up with a higher overall gear ratio than stock. In other words you will turn less rpm's at highway speeds in 5th gear with the 4.11 than you would with the 4 speed and the 3.36 stock ratio, but gain a lot in the lower gears(especially 1-3) to win those stop light "races". See the post in the tech articles for the ratios for the transmissions combined with the 4.11. With the ZX 5 speed you could even go lower than a 4.11 to a 4.37 without turning more rpm's at highway speeds.

No problem, Eric has first chance, then we'll go down the posting list. How's that for being fair? If Eric isn't interested I'll take the rear and 59ghia can have the front since I already have one on the car already. I take it the one in the pic was a fiberglass one?

It is not an easy job under the dash although the underhood work is pretty straightforward. It depends on how you plan on doing it. Are you using used parts from another car or are you buying a kit from MSA or someone else that has everything new that you need? One caveat for the used parts is that you won't know the condition of the parts until you have it installed and charged. Then it's back to taking it apart to repair and then re-charge. I think if I were to do it I would uswe the kit from MSA for about 700-800, at least you know you are getting parts that will work. By the time you do a swap from another car you may well end up buying replacement parts, compressor, dryer, etc. that will end up costing you nearly as much. The big plus of the kit is it has the rotary compressor which is more efficient and quieter. The hardest part will be working under the dash to install the components around the heater. You may well end up removing the dash to get the room to work as it may get a little cramped trying to run the vent hoses and removing and installing the heater box when you have installed everything. I know when i removed the A/c unit from my 280 it was a PITA to try to get it out from behind the heater control panel, where most of it is located on a 280. Not sure if the kit for the 240 will have it in the same place or if it will be more under the dash around the heater box.

I may be interested in the spoilers if Eric isn't, let me know how much you want for them if he deosn't want to trade. I really only want the one piece rear, but will take both in a package deal for the right price.

Nah, I'm not offended, besides, I know where you live.:eek:

Ok, Jeremiah, ya got me there. But it isn't as though mine will always be stuck in the garage. Just need more time to work on it so I can take it for a spin once in a while. Now that I have sold the 280 I can actually work in the garage again if my job will cooperate.

I agree and I also disagree with all the previous posts, here's my 2 cents on subject. Yes, it's a beautiful car, and it does have a lot of very decent modifications. Is it worth that high a price? Maybe to someone who doesn't have a Z, but to me it's too high and here is why. For that kind of money I would expect a car that equals the Z Store restoration. Not modified like this one is. Why? I will have everything this car has except the A/C and adjustable struts in my car when it is finished and for a lot less than 18k. Will mine be worth that when I'm done with mine? I'd like to think so but in reality it won't be. For one simple reason. There are still too many cars on the market for the price to go that high. That's one of the reasons the factory resto's had trouble selling for the price they were asking. It would be nice to see our favorite car get to the point where we all could get this type of money for them, but if they did we wouldn't be buying them in the numbers we are. It's not that this car isn't worth it, it's a fact that for every one car that goes for a price like this, there are ten more just as nice going for 5k to 7.5k. In another ten years or so when more of these cars have fallen to the "rust monster" the values of the surviving cars will definately start reaching these numbers, but the fact remains there are just too many cars still on the road for that to be reached anytime soon. In some ways we are the enemy, we are preserving so many of these cars that we are the ones keeping the values down. That being said, I'd like to say that IMO I prefer to see more cars that anyone can afford, that was the whole idea behind the Z in the first place, an affordable sports car that nearly anyone could afford to drive and enjoy. If the prices were to reach the truly collectible car status, we would not be willing to take our car out for a weekend drive, or just cruise around on a nice Saturday night. They would be trailer queens, cars that never are driven, and then the next thing you know none of us would be able to afford one. The worst thing to happen to the collector car market is the number of speculators who buy a car and pack it away hoping to make a huge profit on it. This car is a perfect example of that, it's a very nice car that someone is trying to make a killing off the sale. While this might be OK for old Ferrari's, Aston Martin's etc. you have to look at the fact that no one ever really enjoys them, they are just "eye candy". I have seen quite a few cars that were just for show, and I saw one person in particular with a Ferrari F-50 that took it to the race track and was giving spectators a ride around the track for donations to charity. He wasn't afraid to use the car for what it was built for, in fact they kept having to tell him to slow down. I have the utmost respect for him in that he was willing to take it out and run the hell out of it, instead of leaving it sit in a climate controlled garage waiting for the price to go up. I for one hope the early Z never gets to the point where a person is afraid to take it out and use it, they are just too damn much fun to leave sit in a garage all the time. I guess what I'm trying to say is this car could be duplicated easily, and for a lot less money than his asking price. If it had some special significance in Z history the asking price would be acceptable, but it's just a nice car with a high price tag that will be hard to sell.