Arne

Hmm. Make certain that the butterflies are opening all the way when you floor the pedal. If the linkage is bent or mis-adjusted, you might not be getting full throttle opening.

I've seen used ones on eBay go for as much as $80 or so. I actually have two good ones - one on my car, and one still on the parts car. Both hold their hatches open nicely. I haven't decided if I dare sell the extra one, as soon as I do the other one will probably fail.

As best I recall, no. Only 16x7.

Nope, nothing like that on the early 240Z's, for example. The wiring changes lots from year to year.As for your issue, I've not played with wiring on a Z that new, so I can't advise you on it.

It would help a lot if we knew what year and model car you are working on...

You can remove the domes without any special parts on hand. Just make certain to keep the parts matched - I normally only remove one at a time to ensure that I don't mix anything up. Lots of SU info available on the 'net, and the video from ZTherapy is very good as well.

I'll second that. It might surprize you to find how many old and obscure parts are still available, if you give the dealer the part number instead of asking them to look it up.

You might want to try using the search function here on the site, I'm certain you'll find some good info. I have gone from injection to carbs, but not the 4 bbl, just the stock SUs. The tech article I wrote on the subject is at: http://classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21574 You may want to consider using the SUs, the performance is about the same, probably better economy, and cheaper, even if you go all the way and have a set remanufactured (see ZTherapy). I'll be posting my spare set on eBay soon, complete with manifold, heat shield, linkage and springs.

Check for corrosion and/or dirt/carbon/etc inside the dome. The piston rises and falls from vacuum and so the clearances between the piston and the inside of the dome are very tight. Any crud inside or damage to the outside edge of the piston or inside of the dome will cause this.

If you find one, let me know and I'll ship these out to you. Or if you find some other small-but-fun/necessary part instead, I'm all ears.

I have six varied original Japanese wheel weights that came on a late '71 240Z. Or rather, came on the set of wheels I picked up a while back from a late '71. These weights are remarkably simple, with almost no casting marks on them. One has '30' (the weight in grams, I assume) barely visible, and I think I can almost make out a '40' on the larger one. One has a small dent in the lead, not certain where that came from. Would these be something that one of you that are doing the nuts and bolts restoration might like to have? I'm not looking for cash for these, but would entertain interesting or useful small items in trade. (For example, I'd love to find a map light lens-only.) Any interest?

Be careful with the 215/60-14s though. Depending on the offset of your wheels and whether the car has been lowered (or even just 'settled' over the years) you could have clearance issues in the front while turning. I'd recommend test fitting one on the front before you go for this size. While they don't look as wide, I plan to go with 195/70-14 on mine. Those are the same height as the original 175-14 (and came stock on the 280Z), and shouldn't cause clearance issues on any normal wheels.

Way too short, and a bit narrow, assuming your wheels are truly 7" wide. I have 206/60-14 on mine, and hate them, as they are still too short as well. I'd recommend 215/60-14 to even get close to stock height.But then again, some people like really short tires. I'm just not one of them. I want the tire to look proportionate in the wheel opening.

They're not hard to tune yourself, just takes time and a bit of knowledge. The knowledge can be acquired by purchasing ZTherapy's video.

In that case I'd say that a conversion will be a lot of expense and headache for no gain. Not that there is anything wrong with the conversions, but both the Holley and the DGVs are far more complex than the SUs. Both will take some fiddling to get them dialed in on a stock L24. Of the two, the DGVs are probably going to be closer out of the box, but they still require syncing, which is one of the things that some people don't like about the SUs. In my experience, the biggest problems with dual SUs is that people can't leave them alone. They are always the first thing that people start tinkering with if something doesn't seem right with how the engine is running. But 95% of the time, the carbs are not the problem. Once SUs have been properly set up, they don't change on their own, so they should not be re-adjusted unless something else that affects the engine's breathing (cam, header, displacement) has been changed.

Odd. Both of my dashes (10/70 and 4/71) have the bracket as shown. I wonder if Phil's was removed in the past by someone making more room for a deeper head unit?

I guess my first question would be, "Why?" What are you hoping to gain? What other mods have you done to the engine?

If any of you have followed my posts in other exhaust threads, you'll have noticed that I normally recommend having it done locally, not buying a pre-built system. Well, I'm here today to say that I'm having second thoughts about that, now that I am in need of a system on my own car. It seems that all the local muffler shops around here have gotten greedy. I have talked to several of them and received quotes of anywhere from $375-600 for a 2 1/4" aluminized system. I figure this should be $250 max, but can't find anyone to do it that cheaply here in the Eugene, OR area. Shoot, I can buy a MSA package with the 3-into-2 header and shipping for less than what they want to charge me for the header back alone. Then I could eBay my Hooker header and be money ahead. I really would prefer smaller than 2 1/2" for my stock L24, but may have to settle for that anyway, just on cost alone.

Unfortunately, a prior owner disposed of the original motor long before I got it. I had planned on rebuilding an L24 out of a '73 for it until I got the parts car, which is a later (Series 2) '71. So it is not original, but it is closer than the '73 would have been and does have the proper E31 head. Of course, as far as originality goes, mine is even more non-original than that - it was built with an automatic, now has a proper early 4 speed.

My opinion - if you are going to go through the work and expense of pulling and refurbishing the motor at all, do it all and do it right. If you don't have the proper professional measuring tools (and most of us don't), take the parts you want to use to your chosen machine shop and have them tell you what you need. If I were going to go this far on mine (and I was planning on it until I bought my parts car with a good motor in it), I would automatically replace all the bearings, probably have the crank polished, the rods checked, new rings properly end-gapped, and either a light hone on the cylinders with the original pistons, or bored over-size with new pistons, depending on the wear in the bore now. Probably a new oil pump, and maybe have the crank/rods/flywheel balanced. While the head was off, new guides, timing chain kit, and hard intake seats (if they haven't already been replaced). Probably all new valves and springs. Reuse the cam and rockers if they are good, but a new cam oil rail if the cam is not drilled. The thing is that you only want to do this once, so don't take any shortcuts. If there's any doubt about a part, replace it.

I can weld (after a fashion), but I don't have a welder of my own, so that's not a very good option for me. I'm going to call a few more local shops for quotes, and while I'd prefer mandrel bent 2" or 2 1/4" pipes, the reality is that for a stock L24 for street use I can probably easily get away with normally bent 2 1/4" as well. I should think that if I salvage the Y pipe with dual collectors from the parts car, it shouldn't cost more than $200-$250 to make up what I want. I'll keep you posted.

Welcome, Peter. There is good info here, I've found this to be an incredibly useful group. You'll want to play with the "Search" function here, as the archives are filled with good data. As far as bringing yours back to life, there was a recent thread on this subject. Take a look at Waking the sleeping beast?

Hmm, you know, I've seen cases where one of the pair of carbs will have the throttle lever catch on the choke linkage and hang there. This could definitely cause this type of thing. I know Bryan won't mind me messing up a copy of his picture for a good purpose like this. Look closely at yours where I have circled in yellow.

True story. But a call to the local shop that was recommended to me by the hot rod crowd put the brakes on the project real fast. He gave me a ballpark figure starting at $550 for the job, up to as much as $1200 for full stainless. Now I know this shop will do excellent work, but $550 for an aluminized 2 1/4" system with a Y pipe and two 2 1/2" flanged collectors seems a bit high to me. This shop does do mandrel bending, but it was not clear in the ballpark estimate whether the low-end included that, or was just normal bending.Man, I'm going to have to start selling off some spare parts to raise some cash...

That's right, no more 280ZX under the hood. Well, maybe just a little, it still has the ZX distributor and alternator in it. But the oil-burning L28 is no more, and a clean running L24 is in its place. For details (and a few pictures) of the weekend's progress, check the car's website - A Work in ProgreZZ But the short version is this: the L24 is in and it runs, quite well actually. It's rather loud now, with its totally open headers. There was no feasible way to marry the old exhaust to the headers, so the car is grounded until I can get it to the muffler shop, hopefully next weekend. All in all, a rewarding weekend for me. I'm not sure if I can be ready or not, but I'd like to have it on the road in time for the Mt. St. Helens run in October. We'll have to wait and see...