Arne

Now that I have gotten the Pertronix and new Crane coil working properly on my car (finally), I have noticed a couple of small improvements over well-adusted and maintained points. The car needs less choke to start, and the choke can be released sooner. Perhaps a little less cranking required to start as well.But really, that's about it. So if you don't care about the minor stuff like that, and don't mind maintaining the points now and then, stick with them. Oh. Yes, I do carry a set of points in the car, just in case the Pertronix goes out. I'd do that with a ZX ignition too, plenty of those E12-80 modules have died w/o warning as well. So it's not just a Pertronix thing. But on the flip side, I carried a spare set of points in the car when I still had points, too.

The dual outlet muffler I wanted to use has a 2.25" inlet.

Making progress today, but I don't know that I'm going to be happy at the end. I'm far enough along that I'm pretty certain it's all going to fit, but also far enough along that I can say that had I known what I know now, I would not have done it, and would not recommend this project to others. I shortened the rear pipe 1¾" between the flange and the center hanger. That seems to have worked fine. Allows more room in back for the muffler to fit better, lines up the center hanger with the mount on the diff crossmember, but still clears the rear suspension and diff mounts at the bend. So that turned out OK. Not sure why I needed to do this, as the Magnaflow is the same case length as the Dynomax. The mis-placement of the center hanger is odd too, as that placement would have been wrong regardless of muffler used. However -- after starting the engine for a quick test, I'm rather fearful that it is going to be louder than I prefer. And Walter was correct, it's going to be darn hard to put a glasspack in the center, as the center pipe is designed to hug the left side of the tunnel very closely. The loudness might not be quite as bad as I fear, part of the noise is from leaks. The joints where I reduced from 2½" to 2¼" are proving difficult to seal up.

These are simple cars. It really doesn't much matter how you trigger the coil, just that everything is up to snuff. Points will work, so can electronic ignition. Use whichever works best for you. For your question - there are several potential root causes of the 4000 RPM wash-out. Since you were experiencing this with points, but it went away after the Pertronix was installed, I suspect a bad (or inadequate) condenser. Just a guess, diagnosing things like this over the Internet is difficult. As for the tach, a '73 should be fairly simple to make work. I think those are the more modern tachs that just need a connection from the negative side of the coil?

Yup. Performance springs are the same issue. 240Z springs will slam a 280Z on the ground. Too soft, too short.

Yes. Length and spring rate.

Tires seem a bit large to me, especially on the front. Pretty wide, and a bit taller than stock.

Finished the tip mounting tonight. Three rivnuts per tip. Works great. Then dropped the old exhaust, all one piece save for the Monza tips at the rear. Cut the rear S-pipe, and started trimming the new 2¼" bend to fit instead. No particular problems here. Finally, I started bolting up the new, nothing totally tight, but in place to see how it fits. And the rear section is too long. I'm going to be forced to shorten it. The Magnaflow will sit too far back, plus the center hanger is actually 1½-2" too far back as well. I'm thinking about taking a couple of inches out as shown in the picture below. Didn't want to cut there, but I don't think I'm going to have much choice.

Yes, for those of you who notice such things (like me), the Magnaflow logo is upside-down. Yes, I know that. Yes, I care. But no, it was not an accident. While I would have preferred the logo to be right-side up (having more than a touch of OCD), I noticed that the inlet tube on the muffler is angled a bit to one side. Not much, just a couple of degrees. Definitely not intentional on Magnaflow's part, just manufacturing tolerances. But it is enough that I felt the fit would be better if I mounted the muffler with logo upside-down. So that's how it will be. The planned black paint will pretty much hide that anyway. ********** I picked up the last of what I need (I think) this morning on my way to work. Will finish fitting the tips tonight after work, and probably paint the muffler. I've got tomorrow off, so I expect to complete the whole system early tomorrow, barring something unforeseen.

IMO, an early 260Z with a carb swap makes a great daily or weekend driver. There are many improvements over the 240Zs, especially the early ones. But to the general public, the comments the previous two replies are what sticks.

More details. The tips need 3 screws each. Two won't locate them firmly enough. Doesn't look like I identified the muffler yet in this thread - it's a Magnaflow 11148, natural stainless, small 3½x7x14 oval case, 2¼" centered inlet, dual 2" outlets on 2¾" center spacing. The tips are Hedman 17120, 2" ID inlet but expanded to fit OVER the 2" ID outlets of the muffler. Very little expansion was needed - these tips were designed to be welded, and were a pretty sloppy fit on a 2" pipe out of the box. The actual ID was probably around 2 1/16" or so. So expanding them to fit over the muffler outlets was not much of a stretch. To get these 9" tips to work, the lower tip has to be butted up tight against the weld of the lower outlet to the case. To make that happen, I had to shorten the lower outlet by about ½", otherwise the tip bottomed out about 10mm short of the weld. The upper tip is mounted just about 1¼" farther out than the lower. The Magnaflow muffler has outlets that are a bit longer than I expected, which was good - had they been much shorter I could not have bolted the upper tip, would have been forced to weld it.

Parts are all here (mostly). I can now start the fab work. Here you can see the mandrel-bent 2¼" 90° elbow that will be used in place of the final bend in the S-pipe. I bought a Cherry Bomb brand #52015 that has a 4" radius. Knowing what I know now, if I were ordering today, I would use a Hedman #12016 which has a slighter tighter bend radius of 3 3/8". Since the room for the muffler and tips is tight, the slightly tighter radius would give just a touch more wiggle room in fitment. Here is the muffler with tips in final position. In this pic, the tips are only held in place with one screw/rivnut apiece. For the final assembly, I plan to use at least two, maybe three screws per tip. Each screw will have a lock washer at least, still debating Loc-tite. As I noted above, getting that long muffler/tip assembly under the back w/o having the tips extend too far beyond the bumper will take some fiddling, but I'm pretty certain it's going to work. It's too bad that there aren't any tips in the 7-8" range, rather than the 9" of these. But since the whole idea here was to do this with off the shelf parts, I make do with what I can get.

In theory, I believe the 6->1 is better for the lower part of the powerband, while the 6->2 is better at high RPM. Therefore the 6->1 is typically better for street use. That said, I doubt the difference on an otherwise stock motor is significant. Either will do the job. My personal preference (if I were interested in a header) would probably be the 6->1 MSA, mainly because the 2½" Premium exhaust is built to bolt up directly to that header, which makes the installation of a decent 2½" system relatively simple.

I hate those little valve cover filters, for exactly this reason. They don't stop blow-by from getting out and smelling up the car. If it were me, I'd plumb that breather back into the intake system somehow. And the blow-by could definitely be worse if the PCV is clogged, so you may want to change it too. I seem to recall they aren't very expensive.

I did replace mine. The original was very stiff, the replacement was quite flexible.

Maybe. The swaybars could be aftermarket, but the LCAs are not.

^ What he said - the knobs are for the footwell vents. LCAs look stock to me, looks like someone liked blue paint.

I might still have a good spare early switch or two, Marty. Might not be able to check until Friday, however.

True, properly replacing parts in the rear should not require an alignment, because there's nothing to adjust if the rear suspension is stock. I'd definitely recommend making sure that the rear is checked next time the front is checked, just to make certain that all is well.

Yes. The front toe especially changes with the ride height. So if you lowered it, you should have the alignment reset. Of course, you'll just have to do it again when you do the bushings...

"Competition".... he he he....

Yes, here's the link:http://www.technoversions.com/DiffMountHome.html

Dang! I had been planning on attending this show, but late Friday decided that I really needed to get some things done around the house, and couldn't devote 12 hours of my weekend (including drive time) to a car show. So I wasn't there to run into you in person, Rob. Oh, well. At least I got a lot done here at home, and will be able to spend a mostly guilt-free day at the Portland Historic Races in 2 weeks.

To me? The shift lever, hands down. I refuse to do anything to the car itself that isn't reversible.

Rob, there is another option. It requires cutting and welding on the later shift lever. Here's a couple of places with some details and info. http://classicmotorsports.net/project-cars/1970-datsun-240z/digging-datsun-details/ http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?31383-zx-5-speed-shifter-modification&highlight=weld+shift+lever http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?24759-5-speed-in-a-4-speed-question/page3