Walter Moore

What you have is a set of Weber down draft conversion carbs. It was an aftermarket kit that was popular at one time. The kit included the carbs, linkage, and the hook shaped extensions needed to adapt the down draft Webers to the side draft intake manifold. From what I have read it was mostly intended to provide a way to replace the "Flat Top" emission control carbs that came on some 73's and all 74's with carbs that ran better but still could pass an emission test. They are still available here: http://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/CTGY/PFFC02 But the prevailing opinion around this site seems to be that they are best avoided. (I am not sure, but I believe that most jurisdictions that test emissions exempt cars made before 76.) You can get pictures of the various double carb setups that came on the Z here: http://www.ztherapy.com/ That is the place to go (in my opinion) for rebuilt SUs if you are so inclined.

I like silver myself.

Maybe it is just where I live, but I have had only bad experiences with parts from junk yards. Either they are broken to start with, or they don't last more than a year. To make matters worse, often the prices are higher than the what discount stores charge for rebuilt parts. There are also a lot fewer junk yards around central Indiana than there were 20 years ago. I guess the increasing land values drove them out, or everyone else had the same bad experiences that I did.

Heh, I recently found out the hard way that synthetic brake fluid is a great paint remover.:stupid: Spent several hours wet sanding and buffing the repairs Saturday. I don't know what it would do to vinyl however...

As I have mentioned in other threads, when I originally put my 240Z back together I installed a GM style "Single Wire" hot-rod alternator in place of the 40A externally regulated unit. Well, that silly thing died recently, and since I really need the car operational next weekend, I decided to do the ZX upgrade described here: http://datsunzgarage.com/engine/ I went to the local Advance Auto, and ordered an alternator for a 280ZX Turbo, because they are supposed to be 70A units. I am not sure that is really what I ended up with, but the test report that was taped to the rebuilt alternator shows a maximum output under full load of 72A at 13.5V, so I was happy to see that. I followed the Z Garage directions more or less, but at first I thought he was full of it. The connector to my voltage regulator didn't have all of the wires that he described. THEN I remembered that one reason I went with a single wire alternator in the first place was that some of the wires from that connector broke off when I unplugged it.:stupid: So, after tracking down the missing wires, and determining their purpose, I was ready to follow the instructions, well almost. I determined that the white and yellow wires he says to jumper are for the remote sense circuit, which being a very good thing I jumpered as instructed. (After finding said white wire lurking around the wiring harness...) But, since I really hate soldering while standing on my head inside an engine compartment, I installed the diode in the jumper from the black w/white stripe wire to the white w/black strip wire. The black/white wire is from the ignition switch, so the diode needs to be installed with the "stripe" on the side connected to the white/black wire. This is much cleaner and simpler than hacking up your wiring harness. Upon starting the car, the first pleasant surprise was that the alternator immediately put out 14V, even at idle! (on my meter that I added to the dash) The single wire unit would never start charging until I bliped the throttle to get its excitation voltage started. Even at that, it didn't like to produce 14V until the engine hit about 1K RPM. However, my fears turned out to be justified in that with all the electrical accessories running, i.e. Headlights on high-beam, fog lights, driving lights, electric radiator fans, passenger compartment blower, wipers, etc. the voltage falls to less than 12V regardless of engine speed. I guess it is usable for now, so long as I don't need to drive very much with the defrosters running at night in the rain.

You are fortunate that the body doesn't require any major work, because that is the hardest part of the process. I dropped a 5 speed from a 83 ZX in my 240, and am very pleased with the result. I would be more pleased if I had also replaced the differential, but that is another story. The tall gears in the 83ZX don't match the 3.36 differential in my 240 very well in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, the ratios of the 5 speed are very evenly spaced, and I dearly love being able to downshift from 3rd to 2nd without having to redline the engine first, but overall I think it would work better with at least a 3.54 gear set, if not the "correct" 3.90 gear set. I mean it is cool to be able to go 45 MPH in FIRST GEAR, but not very practical...

Probably because it has a 3.7L engine... One of the hazards of tying your product's name to a specific technical detail of the product I suppose. When that detail changes, you have the unhappy choice of changing the name, or breaking the linkage. From some of the threads here, it appears that in Japan the "Fairlady Z" was (at times) offered with multiple engine choices, from turbocharged fours, to the same six cylinder engine available in the U.S. But elsewhere the model name was always tied to the six cylinder engine. As a result if you bought a 78 Z in the U.S. it was a 280Z, whereas the same basic car sold in Europe was a 260Z. Interesting that they are still following the same model after 38 years...

When you take the head off of the car, check it very carefully for any signs of erosion, or pitting of the chambers. On mine the PO had apparently driven it for a long time with a small coolant leak into the #6 chamber, and it left a track in the head that the head gasket could not fill. It also pitted the chamber so badly that I had to have it welded up and re-machined in order to replace the valve seats. (The pitting had nearly bypassed the exhaust valve's seat) Just a friendly warning. If there are visible tracks from a coolant passage to one of the chambers, you will want to have the head resurfaced before installing a new gasket.

You know, as I was driving my 240 the other night to test out the fuel pump I caught myself thinking that it was good I didn't own it when I was young and stupid... May all who read this live long enough to have the same thought someday.

Indeed, get well soon Darbji.

Welcome to the club. There are several "Hoosiers" who drop by this site. Some seem to have gone on to other projects, but a few still lurk or cause trouble around here now and then.

I haven't worked on the fuel injection on a Z car, (mine has SUs, and that is totally different), but it certainly sounds like there is a lot to do on the fuel system. There are a lot of people here who know about the Nissan injection systems, so hopefully someone will have more insight than me. The fuel tanks on these cars are notorious for developing rust and crud over the years that finds its way into the fuel lines and plugs filters, injectors, and pumps. If you don't know the condition of the tank it might be save time in the long run to start there. Also, as I just learned the hard way, just because a part is "new" doesn't mean it can't be bad. A lot of the replacement parts for these cars, particularly the ones available from the discount auto parts stores, are really old and prone to failure shortly after installation. But still, welcome to the "club" and I hope you can get it worked out.

I can hear the pump when the engine is idling or I am cruising slowly through town. My car has one of MSA's 2 1/2 inch sewer pipe sized exhaust systems, and once the engine gets above 2K I pretty much can't hear anything except the engine. Your car is pretty close to mine in age. Mine was build in April of 71. I installed the 5 speed from a 83ZX in my car over the winter, but I still have the L24 and original differential. With the 3.36:1 diff it is kinda slow off the line, but once it gets moving it seems to move fine. I installed that see through filter (also from MSA) so that I could check it for dirt by just looking up past the rear wheels. I am a little concerned about the impact resistance of that filter. Yet another reason to avoid gravel roads...

It's not, but thanks for the warning.

Personally I consider scrap metal to be the only valid use for any externally regulated alternator. But to each his own. When I installed the 100 amp single wire unit on my car, I left the factory fusable links in place, and installed the recommended #10 AWG wire directly from the alternator to the battery. (Which seems like a fuse to me, but that is what the alternator instructions called out.) This also has the benefit that it bypasses the amp meter, which makes me feel infinitely safer... but does require a volt meter to be able to monitor the charging operations. However, I very intentionally built my own separately fused electrical box for my high power headlights, driving lights, fog lights, and electric fan. Since those were never intended to be part of the 40 amp main power circuit on my 37 year old car, I do not consider it reasonable to power them through the old wiring. Anyone who intends to install a stereo with more than 200 watts would be well advised to upgrade the alternator, and install a separately fused circuit directly off of the alternator to power said unit. After all, the radio that came in the 240's was only a 6 watt unit. The biggest problem that I have had with my alternator setup has been keeping it from eating belts. It took several attempts to get the pulleys lined up correctly. After that I found that the stock alternator belt isn't capable of carrying the load. Currently I have a general purpose V belt from Tractor supply installed. It works better than the stock belt, mostly because it is thicker and wider, but I don't know how long it will last. In any event, if you upgrade the alternator, please consider separating out the high powered loads that require the higher power from your stock wiring. If you don't have any extra high powered loads, then why bother with the upgrade at all?

Just so that I don't lead anyone astray with this thread, it turned out that I had several issues, some of which apparently masked other problems. 1. The old 4 speed transmission was bad, which caused part of the vibration. 2. Some of the old Universal joints were stuck, causing the rest of the vibration. 3. One of my brake calipers had a stuck piston, causing excess drag. 4. But the primary issue turned out to be a bad mechanical fuel pump. Actually it might be the pump eccentric on the cam gear, but when I installed an electric pump back by the tank, the problem went completely away. I just removed the mechanical pump to eliminate the risk of rupturing the diaphragm and filling the crank case with gas. The car actually runs better at all speeds now than it ever did. It used to be sort of rough and surge occasionally at idle, but now it is smooth all the way from idle to the red-line.

I just installed a Holley electric fuel pump on my '71, and am having minor second thoughts about where I mounted the thing. (But I don't know how else I could mount one.) I drilled and tapped two 6mm holes in one of the brackets that holds the trailing end of the rear A arms and mounted the pump there. By the way, that bracket must be made out of spring steel, because it is hard as hammered $%&&! The instructions that came with the pump specified that it had to be mounted vertically, with the motor above the pump itself. Holley also wanted the pump mounted lower than the tank, but there was no way I was going to leave it hanging down below the suspension. I also installed the oil pressure safety switch that they recommended. It certainly sounded like a good safety feature to me. For some reason, on my car the factory wiring harness's positive wire back by the fuel pump didn't have any power, so I powered it off of the +12V side of the ballast resistor. I also added a 7.5 amp fuse as specified in Holley's wiring instructions. This setup certainly solved my strange engine running issues that I was having before. At 97GPH of fuel flow (65@5 PSI) the pump can certainly supply way more fuel than a naturally aspirated L24 could ever use. Anyway, do any of our resident Z car experts see a problem with this installation. I tried to deal with all of the likely issues that I could think of up front, but if anyone has other ideas I would love to hear them.

Disconnect the battery cable, and pull the fuse box loose. Turn it over and look for broken wires or bad solder joints. The Z cars are infamous for melted fuse boxes, often caused by loose clips, or bad connections on the back side generating enough heat to melt the plastic. I had several bad crimps or solder joints on my fuse block. I ended up using inline fuse holders to replace the worst offenders, but there are better options since your fuse block is still mostly intact. At the least clean all the fuse holders and then tighten the connections by pulling out the fuses and squeezing the clips together.

Nice pictures. You know, for reasons that I can't explain, the windshield wipers look more "natural" in the right hand drive configuration like on your car... I am not even sure what I mean by that, it just strikes me that way.

I hate to break you heart, but what you have there is a $200 parts car. It doesn't run, and hasn't run in some time. Meaning: the engine needs work. It has rust in all the usual places, and fixing it even half way right will take lots of time and/or money. Since it doesn't run, you can't drive it to discover all the other things that are wrong with it. (There will be more than you want to imagine...) I took a $200 parts car and made a running car out of it. It can be done. On the other hand, it took me five years to get it minimally operational. Now, coming up on year six, I have at this point spent over $8000, and I have what you describe as a "rat rod". It looks good from a distance, and runs sort of, but I am not yet happy with it, and it still needs work. If I had to do it over, I would buy a running car, even if I had to go to Arizona or California to get it. (Actually at this point I wouldn't do it over...) I didn't want to hear that when I started. But it was the truth.

This year, or possibly last year the IRL switched to ethanol. Previously they ran on methanol. BUT the Indy cars have used alcohol based fuels for around 35 years for safety reasons, not anything else really. F1 still runs on gasoline I think. The safety advantage of alcohol is that it is water soluble and you can easily put out a fire of spilled ethanol with water. Spray water on a gasoline fire and you will just spread it around. When they switched from methanol to ethanol the IRL also had to reduce the size of the gas tanks to force the teams to make the same number of pit stops. There are more joules of energy per gallon of ethanol than there are in methanol, and thus the cars get better fuel mileage. That is the reason that adding ethanol to gasoline results in lower fuel mileage. Gasoline has considerably more energy per gallon than ethanol, and by diluting the gasoline with lower energy ethanol the vehicle's mileage inevitability suffers. The E85 fuel will have the worst fuel economy of anything on the market. There is just no way to get around that. On a side note, that is also the primary reason that Diesel vehicles get better fuel mileage. The optimal thermodynamic efficiency of a Diesel is only 35%, not all that much better than the Otto cycle's 32%. The biggest source of the improved mileage of a Diesel is simply that there is much more energy per gallon in the fuel. Personally, I will leave the politics of "climate change" to those who believe in such things. I will not willingly pay extra for fuel that will get fewer miles per tank. I know some farmers here locally however who are THRILLED by the demand for corn. They are making record profits on their harvests for the first time in their lives! I am sure that that increased market value for the principle feed stock of all meat products has to have some impact on the cost of food. However, I expect that most of the rise in food prices are simply the result of the increased cost of transportation and energy. Back in the late 70's the escalating cost of fuel pushed up the prices of almost everything resulting in sustained double digit inflation for most of the Carter administration. They say that what come around goes around, perhaps history is just repeating itself.

Not me particularly... I like ALL sports cars. Some more than others you understand.:cheeky: My 240Z just happens to be the one that I found cheap and decided to spend too much money restoring. If I had happened upon a 510 (even more unlikely than a Z around this part of the country) I would have one of those instead. I love reading about your car and the mods you have made to it.

Almost all modern wheels have that huge positive offset because it makes it easier to switch wheels between FWD and RWD models without major changes. The wheels on my wife's 2008 Mustang GT look like FWD wheels... We make a wheel gager that is used by most of the major wheel manufacturers to check the run-out at the end of the production line. I tried to run my ZX wheels through one of our machines at one point just to see how round they were after all these years, and I couldn't even get the probes up that high. With only a +10mm offset the lower (curb side) flange was actually above the home position of the upper probe... Personally I like those wheels, but even if I didn't I would still be happy to see wheels still available for the older Z cars!

By the way, in case some are confused, the US regulation "CAFE" actually stands for Corporate Average Fuel Economy. It is the aggregate average fuel economy expressed in miles per gallon of the entire fleet produced by that manufacturer in a specific year. The current requirement is 27 mpg. (8.69 Liters per 100km for those who express fuel economy in that form.) Trucks are allowed 22 mpg I think. I confess right here that the actual number may be 27.5 or something like that, I am working from memory. In any event, the regulators don't care if a company sells a model that only gets 9 mpg, so long as they sell enough high mpg models to offset the guzzler. Over the years the regulation has been tinkered with to separate imports from domestic (which strangely includes Canada...) production, and each fleet must meet the standard individually. I read recently that Daimler may get slapped with a huge fine because the last year they owned Chrysler their imports, which were all Mercedes models, didn't meet the standard. In any event the new 35 mpg standard will not impact Ferrari because their current CAFE is around 9 mpg and they just tack the fines onto the price of the car. The last year that GM sold the GTO, which was a re-badged Holden and as such an import, part of the price was a gas guzzler tax. GM just calculated the impact that the model had on their import CAFE, and collected the fines up front from their customers. Porsche could easily do the same thing. As much as those cars cost, who would notice?

Ok, stupid question time... Why do the valves in the post on the link at hybridz only have single flimsy looking valve springs? My 240 has massive dual springs on the valves... (I know because I about killed myself putting them on.)