Healey Z

Prices seem 20-30% low to me. I like the low mile original one. It is only original once.

Slight, downloading the service manual is a must. Link

Slight, I think your path is a good one. Do a complete honest assessment of the car, starting with getting it up on 4 jack stands and seeing what you are dealing with in rust and frame repair. As you concluded, it could be that it is beyond economical repair, but maybe not. Will the motor rotate? You can put it in gear and rock it back and forth, to see if the motor will rotate.

Slight, Way to go! Hopefully not too much rust. Looks like a great project!

Zboy, I think you are doing this right and will be rewarded with a nice car in the end.; my old rule was to look on line at 1000 cars, call on 100, physically look at 10 and buy 1. It takes a lot of work to find the right car and I think you are putting in the time and getting educated along the way. To your original post, I think most of the "vapor lock" issues are due to people removing the original equipment, like the motor above or the car has worn parts that need replacing. A common and one of the best upgrades for these cars is to replace the points with electronic ignition. Pop the cap to see if it is a later Z,ZX unit or an aftermarket Pertronics item. Both are good upgrades....good luck, hopefully this is the one

Triple webber? Please do give details and happy birthday.

Jack, you did a real nice job on the car. These cars are made to enjoy and it looks like it went to a good home where it will be enjoyed.

I'm with cozye $1500.

I love math problems . Justifying $70 / $3.50 means you need to save 20 gallons of gas. At 25 mpg that means you would need to save 500 miles worth of gas. So at 1% improvement you would need to drive 50,000 miles. At .1% improvement which is more likely, that would be 500,000 miles. The way I would self justify it is you would improve resale value by at least that amount. Go for it and post some pics!

Not sure where to start. You said you were on a budget, but rebuilding engines correctly is expensive. From the sounds of it, your motor could simply have had a fuel problem. To do a compression test, you don't put compressed air into the motor, you crank the motor with the starter and measure the PSI it creates. Before you start sending parts to a machine shop, I would sort out the condition of what you actually have. Unless you really understand these motors, i would not think about doing head or piston swaps. Find an L28 that is in tact and is in known, working order. Get it and everything else working properly with the SU's. These motors are bullet proof and available and come up all the time in the bay area. Just be patient and pick a serviceable one up for $300-$600. I bought the one below in fantastic shape for $300.

Sorry for the delay. Work, family and the holiday got in the way. My Dad is going to give me a hand on Friday, so I can take my time, adjust the air/fuel while watching and taking pictures of the flame color. Here is my plan, let me know if you would do something different. 1. Adjust carb to two turns open as the baseline 2. Warm the car up 3. Remove air horns/filters 4. Adjust idle, balance the flow with the unisyn at 900, 2500 rpm 5. Replace air horns/filters 6. Install colortune on cylinder 2, adjust mixture to bunson blue throughout rpm range 7. Do the same on cylinder 5 Thoughts on the plan?

If you are looking for a turbo and AC, I'd look at a different car than this early Z. Anything can be added, but the cost and trouble to make a system work properly that did not come originally with the car, just isn't worth it unless you are really skilled in automotives or have a fat wallet. The charm of the early Z IMO is that it is a basic sporty car. Dual carbs, roll down windows, no power steering, stick shift... If you (or your wife) want more of a sporty touring car with automatic, air conditioning, power steering, power brakes, power windows...I'd look at a different car.

Hey Blue, that is not a pretty picture. Glad I already ate breakfast I think gnose touched on both parts of the PCV system; gases from the crank to the intake and air into the valve cover from the air cleaner. In my automotive experience (Z motor new to me) having this system work correctly is important to the motor operation and life. Do you have your catch can prior to the feed back into the intake?

I found it in the 1972 FSM. What you say is true, if the motor is ready for a rebuild, which mine is not.

Bad design? If the engine is operating properly, air should be flowing in to the valve cover, not out to the carbs. I'll see if I can find this explained.

I really thought I would regret selling my cobra replica. But for me, it was kind of the same thing, the mojo was gone. I had done everything I wanted to do, enjoyed it, put plenty of miles on it (25K) and it was time to move on to something else.

Old cars get expensive really quick if you do not do the work yourself. The good thing is that these cars are about as simple as you are going to get, so if you have an interest, everything can be learned.

To some, the journey is the reward. If the car doesn't light your fire anymore, time to move on.

Bingo. 250HP, 29 mpg, $25,000 invested just doesn't pass the sniff test. I do project cars , and this is how I would approach it. The first thing is to determine if it is a car you want at any price; is it full of rust and can you live with the flair job? If it passes those two areas, then assume you will need to pull the motor and/or fix a minimum of $1000 of unknown problems (assuming you can do all the work yourself). I think a $3000 offer, with a final price of $3500 might get that car. That is probably all that the market would bring on this non-running project car IMO.

Zed PM sent. In the little playing I have done with the color tune, I can definitely change the color of from a yellow flame, to blue to one with white flashes, indicating from rich to lean. I would like to be watching the flame change as the carb wheel is being turned, so I can pick out the transition points and really fine tune the carb, thus the desire to have a buddy help me. The unit actually comes with a tube and a mirror, but I didn't try it, because I didn't think it would be visible while I was adjusting the carb...but it may be.

That looks like a very narrow band. About how many turns of the knob would it take to pass from one end to the other of that band? 1/2 turn?

I was going to wait until I had a full update, but here is what I did thus far. I put it on cylinder #2 and fired it up. It had an obvious yellow flame (rich). I adjusted the carb and then walked to the other side to see the color.....repeat that 10 times than called it quits. I have to wait until I can get a buddy to watch the flame color while I adjust to see the point that it changes color. I am certainly much closer now than I was (3/4 turn rich or so), but I want to get it fine tuned. By the way, that would put me right about at 2 turns I have a ton of work and family on the plate right now, but I will get some pics, or video posted when I get around to dialing it in.

Hey Zed, I did consider it, but wanted to keep it simple and not have a point where the hose went near the throttle linkage. Since it is only providing fresh air for the PCV system, I figure the volume isn't sufficient to cause an airflow imbalance. I have seen other original manufactures systems with multiple carbs that have the breather going to a single carb. I just receive my colortune, which will allow me to check the color of the flame in the cylinder and get a proper air/fuel mixture, which I hope to do here shortly. With any luck I will capture some good pics or a short video.

I have tried a number of air filters on this L28 in attempt to have good air filtration, functional air horns, a hose for the valve cover and a solution that looks correct (old British) for the car. I saw an ad in the local craigslist for these air filters ($40) and I was shocked to see they were the absolute perfect fit, with air horns and took little effort to add the hose for the valve cover.

Nice car, but those mirrors...really? Those big chrome things belong on a 1959 station wagon. Also 240HP....don't think so.