2ManyZs

Don't you mean "up" to help you?........ That would make a nice pic for the gallery.....Cruiser with his hands dirty.... Probably fall asleep on the creeper....:devious: and spill his beer all over himself..... :disappoin

I don't know that it makes any difference, but on the blue car, notice the rubber hold downs on the hood? Didn't the Works cars use hood pins? These look to be the "rubber bungee" type you see on a lot of commercial cargo boxes although they are mounted in almost the same spot as the factory hood pins. Can't tell what the car in the black and white photo has, but it looks like the hood has popped open and is only held closed by the safety catch.... I like the way they made the "cow-catcher" on the blue car... almost looks like a copy of a Jag E-type grill opening in it's shape in a way....maybe there's some English ties to that team?

Just got through looking at the application chart and it looks like the Toyota front caliper upgrades, either the S12's or the S12W's use the same bleeder as the stock Z calipers(639560)..... so you won't have to buy new bleeders if you decide to upgrade your calipers....

Oops, I didn't word that right did I?:stupid: I should have said they have them in stock that will work to replace all the bleeders on the car. The rear cylinders on the cars up to 78 require part number 639570 which is a 7mm bleeder and not a 10mm....

If anyone wants to try them, here's a good place to get them for a decent price. I've bought a few sets, but haven't been able to try them yet. If they work as advertised, brake bleeding will be a one person job and a lot simpler than it ever was before.... I'm fairly sure these will fit not only the brake calipers and rear cylinders, but also the master cylinders and slave cylinder as well. I got the last two pairs for $6.00 a pair, which is half of what the price tag is on the package.....:classic: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=33563&item=2431767097

The prices they list are the factory list price. I think all their auctions are No Reserve auctions. I'd be willing to bet, they bought all these parts for pennies on the dollar of their dealer wholesale prices. This is how companies such as Year One got their starts, they buy up all the parts that are sitting on dealers shelves that the factory won't let the dealers return for credit. They have to get rid of it sooner or later..... GM started their own Restoration Parts Group after they realized how much money was in parts that they wouldn't let the dealers return. They did a one-time return of any unsold parts that the dealers still had in stock. Some of the bigger dealers we delivered to had rented storage trailers to hold it all. We spent the better part of a week just trying to haul it all in. One local dealer( a small to mid-size dealership), had 5 storage trailers full of NOS parts for cars all the way back to the mid 60's..... I bid on the last E-88 head they listed, and had it the high bid until the last 30 seconds.... the bid went from 125.00 to 230 in 30 seconds... darn people with their DSL connections....:stupid: :devious:

These people have been listing quite a number of parts on Ebay lately, not a lot of Z parts, but there have been some decent parts going of reasonable prices. Here's one of their auctions... http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2432227131&category=33617 They also have a new front crossmember listed as well..... This is the second E-88 head and about the 3rd crossmember I've seen, so far they don't seem to have a lot of different parts to choose from for early cars.

yup, I've probably got a set of the clamps lying around here somewhere if that's all you need....

If it were almost any color but yelloooowww..:cross-eye It's a well put to gether car, I just can't take that much yellow on one car. Just my opinion... It's already up to 7K with only 5 bids, I'd be willing to bet it will go to 10-12K. Maybe a bit higher, but it's hard to judge the interest.

See no reason why you couldn't. The mustache bar is flexible enough on the end that you shouldn't have to worry about the outside diameter of the sleeve, as long as the inside diameter is correct. After you put the insert in, you could always put the end in a vice and tighten the rolled end and spot weld it fast to keep the insert as tight as possible if you don't want to try rolling the ends over like the original insert was. Otherwise, I think you would have to stake the insert in somehow, to keep if from moving in the mustache bar and causing a squeek.

The best sounding exhausts on Z's is a 6-2-1 header, with 2 1/4 or 2 1/2 inch pipe and that's it..... Course, it isn't street legal, and now it's not legal in racing (gotta keep the neighbors happy) but what a sound at 6K-7K....... especially under the cross-over bridge..... even my tired old fat 280 sounded faster than it really was, even with a helmet and balaclava on.....:devious: :cross-eye

First thing you should do is validate your temps, with either a mechanical temp gauge or a good thermometer in the radiator. The stock gauges are notoriously innacurate. If the temp is higher than it should be, then you really ought to do a good flush. Secondly, is this one of those temp sensors that clamp on the outside of the hose? If it is, I wouldn't trust it. I had an electric fan on my race car, and wired it to a toggle switch, just to be sure it came on when it was supposed to or whenever I wanted it to. Always best to make sure you really have a problem before you spend money and throw parts at the car. You never know, you might not have as bad a problem as you think.

Double check all your connections and wiring. Clean the terminals on the battery and the cables and make sure they are tight, could be something as simple as a little corrosion, or a bad connections somewhere.

Thanks for the measurements Alan, I printed them out, and across the bottom in big bold letters put, "Remember stupid, this is for a RHD!" just so I don't drill the holes in the wrong places.....It's gonna be a while before I install mine and don't want to forget...:tapemouth

Looks pretty good to me.. even if it is yelloooowww.... Be sure to check for rust just like you would and early car though, the 75 I had, had a lot of rust issues just like and early car would. Just because the 280 is a little newer and has slightly thicker metal in the uni-body than say a 70 would, they still are prone to rust in all the same places. One place to check is underside of the floor at the very end of the floor pan frame rail, right where the floor turns up, I've seen many 280's that had rust here. Dash looks good, bumpers even look good and the rubber ends... those are getting hard to find and expensive to replace. Nothing major as far as issues with the FI on 75's... anymore than any other year of the 280 at least.

Another thing you could try, would be to try a slightly hotter heat range of plugs to help burn the intake charge a little better. If you have NGK BPR7ES in now, try a set of BPR6ES. Might be the easiest and simplest solution, and one we often neglect to suggest too.....

Since the areas are pretty small by comparison to some of the pics we've seen:cross-eye I'd suggest cutting out the rusted area and weld in a small patch panel. Then, POR it top and bottom. If the holes were a bit smaller and not as elongated, especially the rear one, I would have sugggested a coat of POR and their matt to repair it. Cut the holes out to where you are starting to get into unmolested metal and weld a patch panel over it, or cut it out to fit and seam weld in in. The POR putty is more for small diameter holes, such as screw holes, or like I did, used it to fill some of the holes in the T/C pocket the factory left open. I wouldn't worry about the drain holes, as long as you have at least one that you can use you should be OK. Some of the problems I think are directly atrributed to the drain holes themselves, if the rubber plug allows any water under the lip of the plug, it holds it in place and allows the rust to form.

If the sun was out that day, we would see a "shine" off something else wouldn't we? Hope you wear your hat on sunny days......:devious:

Well.... we didn't say... cuz we're trying to keep it a secret... I just got a set from MidwestZ, and last spring Charlie at ZeddFindings said he could get a few sets... They aren't cheap though..:cross-eye

It would probably be easier to put a coat of POR-15 on the inside of the rail before you install it, just do the inside up to the flange that you will be welding. You don't want the POR to contaminate your welds. Then just put a thick coat of POR on the outside to seal up the flange where it meets the floor pan. Or, you could do like EScanlon did with his inner dog legs, thin the POR and using a siphon spray nozzle on an air hose, dip the pickup tube into the POR and spray the inside through one of the drain holes....The rail isn't going to have a drain hole, but if you got a rubber plug like what is in the floor pans and made a hole, it could come in handy in the future so you know there is no water laying in the rails. The rails will always get some water into them, unless you seal up the holes around the T/C mount so that water can't get into them. That's where the water got in in th first place that caused the rust you are seeing now more than likely. You'd probably need a hose of some sort on the siphon nozzle so you could change directions to make sure you coat it all.... this would probably be the best way to do it, but also the messiest....:cross-eye

Or you can look through Pete's web-site and see his modifications with his V-8 conversion.. http://mywebpages.comcast.net/pparaska/

I've been getting more practice than you....:stupid:

The simplest way to check for too much play in the throttle shaft would be to spray some carb cleaner around the throttle shaft on the outside of the carb body while the engine is idling.... if it revs up.. you got too much clearance and you would need to re-bush it. I know ZTherapy has the bushings to do the job, don't know how cheap shipping them to OZ would be..it shouldn't cost too much if you can find them locally..

Now that doesn't make any sense at all.....:stupid: Camber plates or stock "top hats" (insulators) ?.... The only thing I can think of is I believe there is a difference in the thickness of the insulators between the early(pre-74)and later cars... maybe you guys grabbed the wrong ones? There's no difference in the length of the strut housings between a 73 and 72 so that's out.......and you used those springs before on a 72 and it was lower.... something here just doesn't make sense.... Only reason I mentioned camber plates is that some are designed to mount on the underside of the strut mount, while some are designed to mount on top in the engine compartment, but even that shouldn't make that much difference.... maybe an inch but that should be about it...... This one is a head-scratcher for sure Pete... and Ken can tell you I can't afford to scratch too much or I'll be wearing a hat all the time..... BTW, love the paint scheme on the car.... hate to be the first one to put a scratch on it.....:devious: Thinking about it a bit more... do you have the sway bars hooked up or not? I got to thinking, you guys plated the frame rail where the sway bar mounts which would lower the bar itself... maybe that could be what is trying to hold the car up, too much tension on the bar itself? As you can see I'm kinda grasping at straws here.........:disappoin

That looks to be one of the systems that puts fuel and NOS into the nozzle, which would make it a lot simpler. You'd only have to plumb another fuel line to supply the solenoids that control the fuel flow to the nozzle......perhaps you'd have to run a seperate line from the tank..that I don't know... Only thing you have to think about now is the rest of the driveline, can it hold up to an extra 150+HP? And do you have the ignition that can hold up to the demands this system would need? I didn't read all the specs on your car on your site.. but that's something else you'd have to consider as well. Only time I've ever been around nitrous oxide was in the dentist's office.... :cross-eye