Leaderboard

To duplicate a post I made earlier on the UK site, I’ve been having a bit of fun doing back to back tests and learning about making YouTube videos - my kids want their own Minecraft channels, so I’m trying to learn with my version, I call it Zcraft! 😄 Ever wondered what an exhaust system would sound like on your car with different mufflers? I personally found that the internet was full small clips but very little in the way of back to back comparisons on the same car. Well, purely for your benefit, I sacrificed myself!!!! I will splice parts of these together one day when I get more time, so that the same bit is played back to back on one video. 1. Thrush / Dynamax 17715 Turbo Muffler (I had some SERIOUS hay-fever that day so forgive my lifeless voice). 2. Zstory Classic Muffler (forgive the jibe at you left-hookers) [ 3. Zstory JDM Muffler (forgive my boyish squeaking) 4. Zstory Street Muffler (forgive the camera mount that broke halfway through the clip). Let me know what you think and I hope it's helpful / fun. (To be very clear, I have no affiliation with Zstory nor is this commercial in anyway - it's just me having a bit of fun and sharing it with fellow enthusiasts!)

I have MSA headers straight piped into the Z Story JDM muffler. No resonator, just straight in. I wouldn't have it any other way. I love to take it through the tunnels at 5k plus RPM as it screams like an F1 car. prob asking for a ticket but I can't really help it. I reckon that's what I'll tell the police after I'm pulled over.

Gotta love running hard through a tunnel, windows down and no one in front of you!

I think there is some wood in there, but put it this way... Nobody should worry about termites.

Nice comparison, thanks for taking the time to create the videos, and share it with us. I used a LoBak auger muffler on a setup I made for my race Z. I ran a production based class that required the use of the stock intake and exhaust manifolds, but allowed any exhaust system so long as it exited the car behind the steering wheel hub, and met the sound regs. Since the heat from the exhaust was burning my foot where the pipe ran down the transmission tunnel, I built a headpipe that exited behind the left front tire, and hung the muffler from the rocker panel with a turndown at the outlet. The muffler is a LoBak auger muffler, made for circle track racing. I used 1.75" pipes from the manifold to just before the fender (wing) and fabricated a 2 into 1 collector with a 3" mandrel bend, connected directly to the LoBak. Had a local flamespray shop coat it with aluminium (this was before the ceramic coating thing happened) inside and out. Looks awesome, never blew over 80db at the track, and my feet don't get burned anymore. My cylinder head guy worked over the SU carbs, intake and exhaust manifolds, put it all on his flowbench with the head and exhaust, and made significant gains in airflow into, and out of the head. All to gain an advantage within the rules. A photo of the part that is outside the car.

I'm sure the longitudinal differences will make it sound completely different :P Will get you some photos tomorrow - the heavens have opened up here and Noah will be sailing past at any moment!! 😞 Thank you sir. Appreciate the kind words. The thing I like about it is that no one box is perfect for everyone - they each have their own characters and suit different needs. I really like that muscle car sound. On the old L26 with the MSA header and no resonator 2.5" pipe, it was just the PERFECT sound that had me at hello. Once the car fired up, there was NO WAY I wasn't going to buy it! I may have ended up with a better car if I had taken my time more, but the sound was just so grin inducing, I regressed to being a 4 year old with a car that went broooom! Sean is more than welcomed to - I'm not precious about them. Although he may want something more professionally done. A good question which I didn't address in the video - the car has the Race / Sport header, it's pipes and the Z story centre resonator that comes with the full package (which if memory serves is 18" long?).

I had a customer who bought an old 4x4 Ford explorer. He took the rear driver shaft and connected it to a generator. He could run his whole house off of it. He could move it around using the front drive of the 4x4. It made a really discreet quiet generator!

@AK260 Thank you for this post, great stuff. Sean should have these on his site for potential customers. Quick question, were any resonators used or straight from header to muffler for your tests?

Well that really depends. Lots of moving parts. What the system cost, if there are any tax credits or rebates, KwH costs and peak rate costs and such. For me, being a contractor, I opted for DIY. Now I got a couple of quotes from local PV installers in the $45k-$52k range for about a 10Kw system. Here in the states, in SC I get about 50% as a straight tax credit. So if I owe $5k and have a $5k credit, they offset each other and I pay nothing. So essentially the system costs half of what the initial cost was. Now, this is all provided you owe taxes and in a sufficient amount to be able to use the tax credit. For many years with a large family and relatively low income these number didn't work for us. I just couldn't make the numbers work for me at the quoted prices. So I found a complete system online and installed it my self. 24 LG 330w panels triple black with Enphase micro inverters and an Enphase combiner. This means that the power leaving the panels is AC current as the DC is converted as it exits the panel. This is much easier for me as I am familiar with working with AC power. DC is a lot more dangerous and cable sizing is completely different for DC power. I paid about $13K for a 7.9Kw array and had another $3k or so in misc, conduit, wire and labor to install it. After the rebates I figure it's paid for in about 60 months. So far I have been really pleased with getting much smaller power bills even with 3 teenagers still at home. I need to reroof the main part of the house and when I do that I will probably expand the system to be close to net Zero. I would also like to have a stand by battery system. Enphase has a new battery designed for their system. They are still quite expensive though. Battery backup adds more complexity too because you need magnetic transfer switches to protect utility workers. Chris, I am sure you are technically capable of doing this type of work! Whether your local municipality and power utility will let you is another question. The other issue is the roof work. None of he system parts are very heavy. Even the panels are only 30#s or so. But my roof is only 6:12 so 22 1/2d of pitch. Almost perfect for my latitude. A steeper roof would be more challenging but my coworker is still very young and his balance is good which makes it a lot easier. We took about 2 days for install but like many things we could probably do it twice as fast the second time. Hope that helps Sorry for the thread jacking

Sweet thread!!! Reptoid Overlords how’s the fitment on your car? It looks like you have a 79 or 80ZX. On my 79, the muffler sits there but then the pipe crosses over and exits on the opposite side where there is a cutout in the valance. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Terrific! Thrush muffler is very American sounding, JDM muffler although glorious race sound would get me in trouble with my neighbors and I think might get a bit tedious on long drives. The classic Z Story muffler is the sweet spot for me, thanks for doing this, excellent comparison by driving the same route, same revs, window open/closed.

It's a very nice site but.. it's not complete, (what is..?) Euro cars are different.. so i have a orig nissan datsun 280zx 2+2 1979 and has a orig N42/N42 engine combo.. It does according to the site not exist.. but it does.. No offence but the site is for US cars only. (I'ts like the only year for a datsun 260z is 1974.. NO!! the datsun 260z was build for europe till 1978! We never had the 280z it does not exist in europe, the ones that are here are (grey) imports from the usa. We got the 280zx in 1979 as the follow up.)

@AK260 these are great, feel free to send me the exhaust parts you did not use and ill test them to see if they sound different in the states. :^) Can we get some more photos of the twin vertical pipe setup? Want to see how it fits the exit on the rear valance.

Oh I hear you! The resonator does kill the sound a fair bit and it was great without it on my L26. But the more aggressive cam and cam timing on the L28 with it’s bigger displacement on 10.5:1 just introduced too much drone for my Lilly soft ears! Glad the musings of a madman had some value! [emoji106]Hope you get the car is back to roaring away again soon!

30 years ago - it was a $3,500.00 example. You have to wonder how much the Dealer paid for it, before he flipped it.

Forty-five five for a red seventy-three. Pretty good.

117º here today. Both central air systems in our zoned house are running pretty much nonstop. We added 30 solar panels to our roof in January and hopefully won't have $700/month electric bills this summer as we typically have had in the past.

I'm having a hard time reconciling these two statements: About the only way to get fuel to pour out of the carb mouth is for the float bowls to overflow. So if the float levels are withing spec, I'm having trouble correlating that to fuel coming out of the front of the carbs. Are you saying that you have checked the bowl levels right WHEN the problem is occurring and they are in spec? Even while there is gas pouring out of the carb mouths?

@AK260 That was fantastic. Lying here in bed watching your videos and giggling like a schoolgirl because they all sounded amazing. It's been sooo long since I've heard my motor run like that. Best part is you tested the muffler that will be part of my build. Thanks for putting this together.

I don't know if this helps or makes it more complicated, but here's a chart I started a few years ago. It's never been QC'ed so be forewarned. As an example on how to read this, the "Turn Signal" circuit is on page BE-11, involves junction connectors C-2, 3, 4, and 5, Fuse #3, which is 10 Amps, uses white, green and black wires (specifically white/red, green/red, green/black, black, and black/white). The way I've used this is to try and match up the colors, then go the the FSM page BE-xx to read the wiring diagram. Junction Fuse Wire Color (primary, secondary) System Page (BE-) Block Connectors No. Amp Red White Green Blue Yellow Black Head Light 10 1345 1 10 R, RB, RW W, WR Head Light 10 7 2 10 R, RB, RW, RY W, WR Turn Signal 11 2345 3 10 WR GR, GB B, BW Haz Warning 12 12346 11 10 WR GW BY Stop Lamp 13 26 11 10 W, WR B, BW Clearance & Tail Lmp 14 1256 5 20 W, WR GW B Reverse Lamp 15 3567 9 20 RB W, WR LB Meter Lights 16 246 5 20 RL W, WR GL, GW B Console Lights 17 12346 5 20 RL GW Interior Lamp 18 16 6 10 RL, RB W, WR B Glovebox & Cig Lighter Light 19 246 5 20 W, WR GL, GW B Map Light 20 46 6 10 RL W, WR B Tachometer 30 345 3 10 W, WR G LB B, BW Water Temp/Pressure Gauge 34 234 3 10 W, WR G YB, YW B, BW Amperage/Fuel Gauge 35 345 3 10 W, WR G Y B, BW Brake Warning 36 156 NA #N/A W, WR G, GY BW Heater Illumination 53 12346 5 20 RL W GR, GW B Heater 54 35 8 10 W, WR G L, LR, LW Heater 54 6 13 20 W, WR G L, LR, LW Heater (resistor) 54 NA #N/A B Horn 58 16 10 10 W, WR G, GB, GR Washer 64 3457 9 20 LR, LW Wipers 67 234567 10 10 W, WR L, LW, LY Y B Lighter 69 146 7 20 W, WR LW B Clock 70 146 6 10 RL W, WR B Window Defogger 74 3567 8 10 R W, WR LR, LW B Radio 78 357 8 10 W, WB, WR L, LR, LW B Theft Protection 81 146 6 10 RL W, WR B Choke Warning Light 85 357 3 10 W, WR G B, BW Interlock 99 7 14 10 W, WR B Ignition 102 35 4 10 WR BW, BY Interlock Relay 103 457 NA #N/A WR L, LR BR, BW, BY Neutral Switch Warning 105 457 NA #N/A LgB BY B Engine Revolution Sensor 106 6 14 10 W, WR B Emergency Switch 108 45 NA #N/A WR L Y, YB B, BW, BY Battery (Power Inlet) 106 14 10 W, WR B Junction Blocks Green C-1 Blue C-2 Black C-3 Brown C-4 Green C-5 White C-6 Black C-7

There are filters at the banjo for the SU carbs, steel mesh. My setup would flood because there was crud that would enter through that filter and jam the float needle. Inspect them for debris.

Ahhh, here we go. Took me a while to find this thread. I actually have two dealer service tool boxes and a bunch of tools. Neither of my boxes are complete.

That loop looked like a great trip(s). Lots of scenic drives along the coast in Washington. I've been through Oak Harbor many times on the way to Fidalgo Bay. In 2017 the Zed club I'm a member of, did a run from Vancouver BC down to Fort Casey going also through Oak Harbor. My drive was little longer as I live in Chilliwack.

Here's my car in the summer of 1980, getting ready for the big brewery strike that didn't really materialize into much. The strike in the summer of 1978 lasted over four months. At least I wasn't thirsty that summer.

For the Z aficianado, here's a pretty neat piece of memorabilia. No tools, just the toolbox - here's the seller description from craigslist: "I've got a factory tool box for the factory tools for an early Datsun 240Z. This is the real Nissan case that had the tools in it for the dealers. Sorry but no tools, I only have the case. This would be cool for a 240z person. Email your phone number if interested." And the link: http://atlanta.craigslist.org/nat/pts/1404914661.html Does anyone have one of these? How about with the tools? Gary S.

Here is what the tool boxes looked like new. There is also a publication about the toolboxes, but I don't have one. Both of my boxes are missing the tray. One box is the original 'Nissalco' silver. It has a a mylar decal on the inside lid that describes the contents. The other box was repainted black at some time but has a metal contents label inside the lid. It is not the same dimension either.

I have two different boxes and a bunch of tools. Here is what I have.