jjones-lg

Don't worry about the dowel in the crancase. Unless you've changed the stock pickup the screen will keep it out of the pump. If you bent valves and the dowel is missing it sounds like the cam bolt might not have been tight. I saw that happen a couple of times and it was when the tech left the cam bolt loose. I've used the Schnieder Springs and Isky. I've Schneiders on everything from 480 lift to 620 lift and they work fine. Not sure there is such thing as overkill. jj

Most assured a u-joint. Now the trick is which one Look for rust at the joints. One that bad will almost always have rust that's visable.

I'm betting it's been clipped with a 240 rear. I don't see the bumper mounts for the 77/78 bumpers that are on the front. Left and right front fenders look different too. Dash is 260? Man what what ever it is you don't want it!!

Better look at the ports if you're not planning on making chips. Compression isn't everything. It's gotta breath man.

Yea I didn't see the second page

That item is a BPT valve (backpressure transducer). It blocks the vacuum to the EGR valve until there is some pressure in the exhaust system. On some of the early cars with this device they would come unsoldered or detached somehow. Nissan had a recall where they put this brace/bracket to hold the tube against the body. If for some reason you have no tube running up to the transducer from the exhaust or have one of the defective ones have no worries. All that’s happening is that your EGR isn't working. Not good for emissions but unless you have to smog the car or are environmentally conscience your car really won’t care. Some early Fed 280Zs didn't have the EGR and no early car had the BPTD. The device on the left is the AC idle up. I don't believe I ever saw any Z with a converter that didn't have the floor light. Some of the early 280s had a Catalyst light too. Damn thing came on when a sensor got to a certain temp and tripped a relay. Actually all the early catalytic models had the cat light. Used to have to reset the damn things on brand new cars off the trucks. The guys driving the cars off the boat would start a line of cars and leave em running on the choke while they drove the cars off. On the carburetor cars the fast idle wouldn't shut off by itself in those days and it overheated the cat.

Your carbs are okay and the N27 will work just fine. Last I heard the N27 wasn't available anymore but glad to hear you found some. As long as you can get the pistons to move up and down freely in the dome you'll be okay. Mixing up the dome and pistons can cause you some alignment problems but that's not the end of the world. You can loosen the sleeves that the nozzle slides in and realign it. I'd recommend you get some new nozzles as long as you're at it. There are a couple of tricks to mixing and matching the SU parts but it can be done. First when aligning the nozzle sleeve remove the adjuster nut (device) and spring. Then loosen and remove the sleeve and the aluminum washer at the top of the sleeve. Throw away the washer because if you reinstall it you will never get the sleeve aligned (that’s the trick!). The washer gets a kind of groove in it and will miss align the sleeve every time you tighten it. Install your needles and if you have the late model with the slot in the bottom of the piston set the shoulder of the needle to the bottom of the piston (where it contacts the ramp). Next install the dome, spring and piston on the carb and tighten the screws. Now put the sleeve and retaining nut back on the bottom of the carb making sure to use thread lock on the sleeve-retaining nut. Now with the piston on it’s side gently tighten the sleeve-retaining nut. I continually push the piston open and let the spring return it, listening for the clunk as it bottoms out. Remember that this is all done without the mixture adjusting nut and spring. Once you have the retainer snugged (you don’t need a ton of force here) make sure the piston moves freely and you can hear the clunk as it seats. As for mixing the different parts you have to be careful about the needle valves. The early or late (don’t remember off hand) have different length valves. You can mix and match the nozzles between the 3 and 4 screw carbs. I can never remember which is which but on one you have to set the needles to the upper step of the slot in the piston. I just set the needles closer to the nozzle and adjust at 2 and ½ turns down and if it’s too lean I know I have to reset the needles. Seriously the N27 should be fine for the 280 unless you have a cam or something. There used to be a ton of Brit needles out there and I used the RH needle for years as a performance needle for a lot of applications. I’ve also fixed more than one set of carbs messed up by water damage. A little acid dip and you’re good to go. You don’t need a completely restored carb to get something that will work. A carb doesn’t care if it’s concourse or not.

If you have an early car and move the diff back so the axles are straight then you need the curved cross brace. Doesn't matter if you have 180 or 200. jj

Kinda of an old thread but I can't believe you guys are running such light springs! I haven't raced my car since '95 but the Z and tires haven't changed that much. I started at 350 and worked up from there. I think we were over 600 in the front by the time we were done. That was on the 280 (I sold the 240) and we were running Koni shocks cause I knew the Tokico's wouldn't take the rates we were moving to. We were running the Toyos (I got the first set of 225/50/14 of the boat in '93) and those things lie lots of camber and tire pressure. On the 240 Z for the Airport course at Holtville I was running over 6 degrees on the left side (mostly right turns). For Willow and Phoenix we'd back the camber off to 4 as I remember. I came from production car racing on slicks and was used to setting suspension by tire temps but found with the Tokico's we had better luck setting the camber by feel and tire wear. The 240 and 280 were sensitive to different suspension settings, which was kind of weird. We were so dialed in on the 240 we would use different camber setting for different tracks. That car responded to camber setting more than sway bar adjustments once we got it dialed. The only thing I just couldn't resolve till I sold the car was the lifting of that inside wheel. I robbed the quick adjusting sway bar set up off the 240 for the 280 and had to build something different when I sold it. I theorized that softer springs and stiffer sway bars in the rear would control the front-end roll better and it worked. We built the 280 for the 5 speed (ITS). My thought was on the faster tracks the extra gear and torque would make up for the 350 pounds. Once we got the brakes sorted out it proved to be accurate. I did a few different things on the 280 than the 240. After watching some videos we did it looked like some to the problems we were having even with the stiffer springs was body roll. I decided to play around with roll centers front and rear. I suspected the roll axis was too much lower than the roll center of the car. IT rules allowed for “any” struts so I made several sets of rears to move the roll center up. On the front I fabricated metal “bump steer” blocks and welded them on. The front is kinda of limited in what you can do and still clear the tire. Turns out that the rear roll center was fine but on the 280 I build some offset “bump steer” blocks to raise the front roll center. With the old Datsun 2000 I’d raced in the 80’s I found that when we got it lowered enough the roll center was way too low and what a difference when we finally got it right. All I can say is if you don’t have camber plates on a racing Z you’re spending you time and money in the wrong places. BTW I still have the 280. I probably should sell it but haven’t been able to bring myself to do it.