Series I Engine Part

[texasz]

I have VIN 8215 which has A/C. The A/C compressor is on the driver's side of the engine in the front (of course, so a belt can reach it) mounted down low (under the carb and exhaust).

On another 1970 engine I just picked up, which as I was told was from a car in the 300s, there is no A/C compressor. Though in it's place is another item that has a hose which connects to the piece just above and connected to the exhaust manifold (the long tube that runs the length of the head and has smaller tubes connecting it to each port of the exhaust manifold)...I'm thinking maybe a smog pump. ??? I didn't think that the Z got a smog pump until '73 though. Anyone know what this is?

[Walter Moore]

It is called an "air reactor" I believe, and yes it is a smog pump, and yes so far as I know all 240Zs shipped from Japan with one because they were required in California at the time. (At least that is what I have read...)

Since California was Nissan's largest U.S. market they made all the cars for California's pollution requirements.

For the rest of the country exhaust air injection was not required until about 1974, so cars sold outside California typically do not have the reactor pump installed anymore.

[CoastGuardZ]

Pretty sure it's an air (smog) pump. That's the same location as on my '72...

[texasz]

Very good!! Thank you gentlemen, I thought that's what it was...just a little confused as I had it stuck in the back of my mind that these were not added until '73 along with several other air quality measures (i.e. flat top carbs :sick: ).

That's one more part for my scrap pile...or 'for sale' list (not likely anyone wants one).

[Carl Beck]

Anyone that is restoring a 240-Z to Pure Stock will need the Air Pump if they don't already have one working order. So I sure wouldn't throw it away...

Nissan needed to use the Air Injection system to meet the U.S. EPA's Air Quality Standards. So no matter what State one was in - for the Z's to be sold in the U.S. it was part of the engines Emissions Control System.

You may be thinking of the Gasoline Vapor Recovery requirement that existing in California in 1970, but which wasn't yet required by U.S. Regulations. Nonetheless that requirement was in the "draft" legislation in D.C. as well, put their by pressure from the environmentalists... So the auto industry knew it was coming.

Canada on the other hand, had no legal requirements for either. So several 240-Z's but strangely not all - arrived without one, the other or both.

[Walter Moore]

I don't know all of the details of how and when this stuff was required. I know that in most of the country it wasn't enforced until the mid 1970's. My understanding of the requirements is based entirely on the attached document that I downloaded from the EPA's web site.

12-miles.pdf

[texasz]

Great info guys, as usual there's always something new to learn. Thank you all.

[Walter Moore]

By the way, automobile exhaust emission controls in the U.S. are required by:"the Clean Air Act, which President Nixon signed on December 31, 1970." Since the U.S. constitution prohibits ex post facto laws, it clearly does not apply to cars manufactured prior to that time.

Also on the EPA web site I see that: "The Act directs the Administrator of EPA to prescribe standards to reduce emissions of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons by 90 percent from 1970 model levels in the 1975 model autos."

Did you catch that? 1975, not 1970.

This is the link:

http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/caa70/05.htm

Yet, for some reason Nissan installed the reactor pumps on the 240Z from the first year of production. Why did they do this when no U.S. law required it, unless California was different? I owned several 1972 model automobiles from other makes that didn't have air pumps. In fact the earliest car that I ever owned with one was a 1974 model.

The whole history of emissions controls confuses me.

[26th-Z]

I don't have an answer about the emission control standards, but British imports in 1970 had smog pump / air injection. Carl is correct - all S30 US imports (not the Canadian cars evidently) had smog pumps. Only the California imports had fuel vapor systems.