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What he said. I went to ZCON Memphis as well, and during that trip a whole bunch of us jelled into a collection of good friends. More than just a bunch of people who owned similar cars, but people who honestly like each other and like spending time together. I really hope I have a vaccine in time to go to ZCON later this year. I've got people I want to see. And the cars are nice too.

I went to ZCON in Memphis Tennessee in 2015? and finally met and hung out with these guys. That was the beginning of a completely new relationship. We are from all over the map but have the same attitude and compassion for the Datsuns. It was life changing for me to be around such a group. Forever friends I can say without a doubt. Sorta makes biker gangs understandable to me, personally. I'd do anything for my Z friends and they would, and do, for me. You have to go to a ZCON. EDIT add to. If I had not had this community of friends on CZC these past years I would have had to seek therapy from the local mental health center. Alcohol can only do so much to help me. Trying to help others really is my selfishness that helps me.

I'm going to sing "reverse, reverse, reverse...baaaaack up. There's a time to go foward... toward a different end. There's a time to shut up and listen again and again... for everytime you think you have got it...you're wrong again and again and again..." Thank you! Elvis has left the toilet.

@siteunseen

I was painting my house and got to laughing thinking of you and Kathy telling me to turn again and again but I kept driving past y'all's hotel. I think I did at least 2 illegal U-turns. I know how glad you were when we were getting the luggage out. Can't wait to see you and Kathy soon. Cliff While I was painting my neighbors gave a Christmas present they had gotten but then they got Covid. Greater later I say.

For me, that Memphis ZCON was the start of faces to a screen, but it has continued since then. I've hopped into a car with a Z guy I had never met before... In the middle of traffic. And after verifying that neither of us was carrying and axe, we went on a pub crawl. I've met for pancakes in Princeton with Z people I had never met before. I've met for project show-and-tell and food north of Toronto with Z people I had never met before. In Orlando, when you've seen enough of the Great Mouse and the other tourist attractions... I've met up with Z people there. I've even been invited to a meal at the parent's house of a Z guy who used to live close to me but now lives completely at the other end of the country. When traveling on completely non-Z related events, I've made stop-offs to see some friends and make new ones. I've met for coffee (and hopefully provide a short respite from the rigors and boredom of work travel) with Z people who find themselves in the area for a layover. I'm wondering if it's just the food and drink.....

Memphis

First thing I would do is make sure the mating surfaces (bottoms of the towers and mounting pads on the head) are clean enough to eat off. And I would (under magnification) make sure there were no burrs or "upset" metal anywhere on any of the mating surfaces. One might wonder how burrs might get kicked up? Well in the case of the head on my car, my PO used a screwdriver between the towers and the head to pry some of the more stubborn the caps off. That screwdriver wedging caused burrs that prevented the towers from sitting properly after that. So if you (or a PO) did anything like that, you need to look into it. As for the percussive finesse... I would put all the caps in place, lightly tap them with a plastic mallet to seat them, put the bolts in and snug them up to a low torque. Maybe a third of the final torque. Then put the (well oiled) cam in place and see how it spins. If it spins free, then tighten up the towers to 2/3 spec and see how it spins. If it still spins free, tighten the towers to spec and see how it spins. If it still spins free at full torque, congrats... You're done. Let's start there and see what happens. If it DOESN"T spin free, then you need to start the percussive adjustments. But I'm going to start off hopeful and see what happens?

Well, we shouldn’t have to justify our hobbies with our loved one but reality is a different story. My wife cannot understand most of the things I do when I’m not working. I don’t watch much TV, I like to be outside doing something, learning something, or building something. I find satisfaction taking a task and making it right. I was building sleeves in my garage last week and had my 13 yr old son helped me and the shelf was slightly off level. Bubble touching one edge of level line. He saw my dissatisfaction and said “Dad, you can’t accept anything unless it’s perfect”. He’s right, “it’s a curse and a blessing I told him.” We took it down and redid it. The people in our lives should value what makes you happy and that’s how I explain it to my wife. I like this forum because you don’t have to wonder if someone is going to judge you and make an unprofessional comment. It’s very liberating! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

As to this forum, I've been into IC engines since I was 11. Starting with a minibike that wouldn't start. My father's friend came over to help. He asked what steps I'd taken. Then he asked if I'd disassembled the carburetor. I thought to myself, "DISASSEMBLE THE CARBURETOR? Is he serious?!" Of course I hadn't. And then he asked a question that me and has guided and encouraged me for bunches of years. He asked "Why not?". And so I did. My point in sharing this, I submit, is that the helpful members of this forum have done the same for other folks here who are new to cars, or new to these cars, or just need guidance. I, for one, have found people who share my love for bringing back to use machines that might otherwise have ended up in a crusher, dealing with rust and hidden body damage and oil leaks, modifying parts meant for another, or even making replacement parts if no other option exists. My friends don't really appreciate that I finally acquired a milling machine in support of my endeavors, my wife has a hard time with the time and money consumed by my "hobby" as she calls it, and I don't know anyone who wants to listen to me go into detail about what I did to restore my door hinges. At least here, if I do decide to post such details I believe someone will read it and, at the very least, politely acknowledge it. That is what makes this group of people unique. I'll stand down from soapbox now.

So everyone knows.....I didn’t buy this Viper it was given to me by my father who was quite an amazing man. He came from humble, lower income family beginnings. Was a 2x Vietnam vet who flew helicopters in the war. He came home with pretty severe PTSD and was so emotionally damaged and saddened by his experience that he decided to become a doctor. He packed up the family and moved us to Italy in 1973 and got his MD in Rome taught in Italian (which he learned while there). We moved back to the states and he became an ER doctor, opened several clinics and gave Free medical services to all Vets, Police and Firefighters and well as people who could not afford medical services. He traveled to Honduras every few years to give free medical care to the poor there. He loved fast cars and when he bought this Viper new it was the ultimate American sports car. He helped more people than anyone I know. He passed away sitting on the living room watching the Scfi channel of was we think was a stroke in 2018. This car is special to me because it is one of the few things I have of his. He put all 38,800 miles on it and to sit in it and drive and the closest I can be to being with him. It holds tremendous sentimental value to me. He surely wasn’t the pretentious man that people may think of those who own cars like this. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

yes a $ 20.00 fire extinguisher is something I should be carrying anyway . this car is like my left nut, I bought in 1979 and do not want to loose it now!!

Every carb I've ever dealt with could take 3.5 psi. I'd let it idle for a while and check for signs of flooding before taking it on the road and check things under the hood a few times on the first trip. Always a good idea to pack a fire extinguisher too.

There was nothing but sheer joy being able to put faces and get to know some of fine people on this forum. We all have more in common than our love of Zs.

its a mechanical VR, I have not had a recurrence of the orig problem since replacing the alt. I wish I had kept the core to evaluate. Now the only issue is an occasional flux, happens at idle and after the car has warmed up some and there is a load beyond just the EFI, like the fan or light. No more wild swings that last or flare up of voltages (head lights flare up) since the change. My SWAG is after warm up my idle is less stable, prob due to leaner mix, I have it set up pretty darn lean (pulling the dip stick can effect the idle, remove the oil filler and it dies in a second). I may richen up the idle circuit just so its a bit smoother sitting at a traffic light. But anyway the theory is, unstable idle means unstable alt speed, add a bit of a load and the VR will have a time switching the field current quickly enough. The ammeter needle does seem to go with the idle changes. I am slowly noticing these things as I generally don't sit and stare at the ammeter, but of course since the orig problem (flaring up lights etc...) I have become much more aware of it. I suspect the alt was the whole problem, I will be reinstalling the OE hitachi VR now just to confirm it was never the issue.

Update, I studied the towers more closely and sure enough there was a large burr on the rear most tower. I carefully filed it down flush and checked all the others. You were correct, obviously someone had prayed it off with a screwdriver! I oiled the cam and towers with the bolts torqued to 7 lbs. It still stopped at the fifth tower. I removed the fifth tower and tried to push it into position but it wouldn’t go any farther. It seems the issue was with the front cam journal entering the tower. I loosened all the bolts back up, reinstalled the fifth tower and when it stopped I lightly tapped the top of the first tower and viola, it slipped right in and turned with ease. I incrementally torqued all the bolts down and it spun just as freely as with no torque! I did the happy dance and started laying out the valves for installation. Here’s where it becomes my typical Datsun story... I realized in all my happy dancing that I had forgotten to put assembly lube on the towers, once again I had to repeat the procedure of loosening torquing etc. on the LAST bolt to torque to 25 lbs with about 1/8 of a turn to go it gets real easy and just spins with little to no resistance. WTHis going on. As it turns out those threads had been Heli-coiled. How they didn’t come apart when I chased the threads is beyond me. Oh well, looks like I’ll be making the 1.5 hour round trip to the closest parts house, damnit! Better to find it now than at break-in I suppose.

I'm 4 hours deeper into the humidity here. You get used to it like snow at your place I guess but no matter how humid it is I've never walked outside and not been able to see my car. We don't have to shovel it either. Oh yeah, I have a dehumidifier in my garage with a 2 gallon tank. My washer and dryer are down there too. I can fill up my washer from the dehumidifier once a week by dumping the tank in there. I'm a conservationist! (tight wad)

And just so the flat-top guys don't feel out in the cold... Here's a pair of linkages for between the two flat-top carbs. Same scenario as above. One has had the throttle opener arm removed, but the washer is still present: It looks like it was done with a hacksaw or cutting disk. Again, I (probably) did this some time ago, but don't remember the details. Whoever did it was clever enough to place the saw slit on the underside where it wouldn't be noticeable when installed. I like to think I'm that clever. Here's a pic:

This forum also has a laid back, bunch of buddies hanging around talking about their favorite car sort of feeling. It's like a Z lover's watering hole. The regulars seem to know each other, and we newbies come in learning from the tried and true experts. Also, there's several informal threads such as this one, the "z's only a mother could love" one, and the "Saturday Music" one as well, to name a few. I'm not sure how many car forum websites are like this - whether it's common, or relatively rare. Either way, that's what makes this forum unique to me.

I did and found an amusing thread immediately.

Thank you for sharing that with us. He sounds like a remarkable man. Take good care of that inheritance. I'm sure he would want you to drive it like a Viper deserves to be driven.

After almost 2 years of slowly rebuilding the engine, I finally got my '70 240Z to start up today! This is the first time I've ever seen the car run, so I'd love some feedback from you all with more experience on how it sounds. The car starts up pretty easily, even with the choke completely disengaged. The RPM seems to drift all over the place though, so I had to keep messing with the fast idle screw to keep it around 2,000 (just above Tom Monroe's recommended 1,500 minimum). It sounds kind of rough to my ears, but again I've never heard the car run properly so I really have no idea. This was originally my (soon-to-be) father in law's car and he thought it sounded a little rough but not terrible. I messed with the timing a little bit and settled on ~15 degrees of advance, but the RPM is wandering around so much that it's hard to know if any adjustments are helping or hurting. I only got around 10 minutes of runtime today because I was running out of a gas can rather than the tank, and I emptied 2 gallons of gas in 10 minutes. I'm pretty sure all of that gas is just going back in the tank through the return line though, as there's no noticeable smoke from the exhaust. Questions: How's it sound? Any concerns from you all? Any concerns about the RPM wandering around, or is this normal for a newly rebuilt engine? I was running water from my garden hose through the open radiator. After my runs today, I just let it drain out and put on the cap and drain plug. Any issues with leaving the remnants of hose water in there? I'm planning on continuing my break-in next weekend, so I'd rather not fill it up with coolant just yet. I also don't want the thing to rust solid over the week. What are your favorite guides for setting timing? Should I try to set timing before or after synchronizing my carbs and getting the mixture set? Thanks everyone - you've all been a huge help so far! Videos: - Very first start! After a few unsuccesful cranks, I handed the keys to my father-in-law-to-be who started it up almost immediately. He claims the car remembers him. - Here's me starting it. I reved it to ~3,500RPM before I got ahold of myself and dropped it back down to 2,000 - Here's a quick walkaround of the car. I'm watching the RPM with my timing light, then bring it in closer to get some engine sound. I then walk around to the exhaust to capture that as well.

Some sk stack polishing going down.