Captain Obvious

Haha! I've already made a couple of these. What price will the market bear?

I haven't looked at all the years, but on everything I've messed with the ACC connection goes dead when the key is in the START position. So it sounds to me that your findings where the ACC line goes pretty much to zero when you hit START is normal. It's probably not going completely to zero because it floats and will be probably be pulled one way or the other by some accessory or other device. As far as the radio forgetting when you hit START... Are you double dog sure you have the "hot at all times" and the "hot when you want to listen to the radio" wires from the radio properly identified and not swapped by accident?

dmoralesbello, Your white install looks great. Too bright for my tastes, but that's up to the individual. As I mentioned above, I'm using the five emitter towers and I find even them to be too bright. But to each his own. About the dimmer control. You'll never get good brightness control of LED's with the stock dimmer rheostat. Just a nature of the electronics involved. If you want good brightness range, you'll have to swap to a much higher rheostat value, or you'll have to change over to a pulse width technology dimmer module. I think pretty much every car made today uses PWM technology instead of rheostats and there was a bunch of discussion about such things in a thread a little while ago:

Yup, you can cut that top emitter off with no problem. Take a look at my crude hand drawn schematic and you'll see that the five emitters are actually in five parallel paths with current limiting resistors for each path. Taking the top emitter off just removes one of those parallel paths. Here's what I did for cutting down the brightness. Start with this: Desolder the center (positive) connection and the base comes off. If the glue bond hasn't already been broken, you will have to break it. But pull/twist, and the base comes off: Unbend the negative lead and pull off the white plastic ring. Same thing goes for the glue here. It's supposed to be glued on, but the quality of the bond is usually pretty poor and it comes off easily: I shortened the length of the positive lead and attached a resistor. The resistor in the pic is 270 Ohms, but I have since changed to a 240 Ohms to make it just a little brighter. I like my dash dim, so the fine tuning of the value is left to the individual: Slip the plastic ring and the base back on, feeding the resistor lead out the hole in the bottom. Solder up that center connection, clip off the excess, and you're done. Here's what it looks like before you solder the resistor lead: When you're done done, it looks like it did before you started. I didn't glue any of them together yet until I'm positive I like the resistor value I picked, but it's a simple matter to unsolder and resolder that center connection. I'm going to get the whole project done and then glue them up. About the green lens? I wanted white, so I just removed the lenses and tossed them in a baggie. If you wanted green, I think you can get the tower versions in green, can't you? Is that "too much" green maybe?

Tidy! My plan is to add some more white accents to the interior. I don't think I'm going to convert everything, but there are plans to do more to go along with the seats. This is a fair weather sunny day vehicle for me, and I'm trying to get my interior temps down some. The white seats already make a noticeable reduction. The Fiero community has one company who has the market cornered on quality replacement seat covers. I'll give him a plug here... Mr. Mike (http://www.mrmikes.com). You can get cheaper stuff on ebay, but Mr. Mike's quality is highly respected. Unfortunately, due to the shrinking market, the choices are relatively limited in both color and fabric. He offers leather and vinyl, but the only cloth offering he has is "stock" GM. I'm sure your choices are much wider with the 350Z seats. I was also looking into early Miata seats, but from what I've heard, the early Miata seats look better than they feel. The consensus is that they look the part, but really don't preform well. At one of the recent car shows near me, there was a whole bunch of Miatas and I talked at length with owners of several different years and they confirmed that belief. 90-98? (First generation) Miata seats aren't top choice while the second and third generation seats are supposedly much better. I was looking into second gen Miata seats, but decided to break the analysis-paralysis and go with the Fiero seats instead. Mr. Mike also does Miata seats, but at this time, he only does first gen. My seat install was one of the few times that I was wishing I was working on an earlier year without the catalytic convertor bump-out. Was a royal pain, but I only had to do it once. So make sure you take copious pics of the 350Z install. I like the idea of a Nissan product in a Nissan.

I've spent a bunch of time working on the LED conversion, and here's some of what I've learned so far. For the discussion, I'm going to call the style you posted at the top of the page "paddlewheels" because I think that's what they look like. I've found that the paddlewheels have very good light dispersion inside the gauges. The only problem I have with them is that I think they are too bright. Other people can't seem to get enough brightness, but I guess I like my dash lights dim. I've found that the five emitter tower styles are not as bright as the paddlewheels, but are still too bright (meaning that I don't think you would need to resort to ten emitter towers). But I also found that the tower styles created a "hot-spot" where the forward facing emitter shines it's light. My solution was to modify my five emitter towers into four emitter towers by razor knifing the top emitter off of the assembly. Now my towers broadcast to the sides only and do not broadcast directly towards the gauge faces. I think the light diffusion and dispersion is much better. In fact, once I cut off the top emitter, I find that the towers and the paddlewheels both seem to have about the same quality of light dispersion. My final hurdle at this point is dealing with the brightness. I've actually spend considerable time trying to come up with an alternative that is less bright and what I think I have decided to do is use my four emitter towers in the gauges and to insert a current limiting resistor inside the BA9S base to reduce the brightness. I've got a bunch of bulbs done and am almost done. It's a pain, but I should only have to do it once. Ever. And yes, I also disassembled all the gauges and popped out the green lenses. Don't forget about the HVAC assy. And I warn you... It's not a easy as the gauges because they glued stuff together.

They are all the same with the exception of the final year (1988). In 88 they changed the way the "listing" seams are done. On earlier years they used metal rods inside the seats to pull the seams down (just like the Z does), and on the final year, I think they used Velcro instead. I'm guessing that the Velcro method was cheaper to produce and easier to install. It matters because you won't like the original fabric cover and will probably want to have the seats recovered. I'm not sure if the available seat upholsteries work for the Velcro types. Not wanting to turn this into a Fiero seat thread, so if you do want additional details, PM me. I should probably make a thread about my install.... Here's a pic of my reupholstered Fiero seats in my Z. They are way way way more comfortable than the stock seats. Much more supportive in all the right places, and good side bolstering on both the back and the base:

Yeah, those look very nice. Thanks for the pic.

That is exactly the case. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Haha!! You mean like this?

I'm not aware of any easy to convert to the wedge sockets for the gauges other than stripping wedge sockets out of something else and splicing them into your dash. Out of curiosity, why would you want to? Just to get rid of the flimsy bayonet base on those LED's? If that's the case, epoxy would be a lot easier. Lot easier. It's not like you have to do a thousand of them. You only need seven. The HVAC is already wedge. Use the one you "broke" in the HVAC position. Problem solved?

Most of the LED's I've messed with are somewhat fragile. The one you pictured is interesting for another reason as well... If you look around on the web, you'll find a very similar bulb in wedge base as opposed to the bayonet base in your pic above. But now that you have pulled the base of one of your bayonet versions, under close scrutiny you'll notice that one side of the wedge shaped base is actually ground down (probably on a belt sander in China) to fit inside the bayonet collar. It's the exact same bulb as the wedge base modified to fit into the bayonet. One side has a solid wire to the positive connection, and the other side is soldered (sometimes not too robustly) directly to the bayonet base. If you want more mechanical stability, I recommend mixing up some epoxy and dripping it down into the base. Fill it all the way up to the top of the metal bayonet collar. That will help keep it from rotating in the future and breaking the soldered connection.

Those hub/bezel rings sound interesting. Have you got any pics of them installed?

I've never measured 350Z seats, but seat width is a critical factor when considering replacements for later cars because of the catalytic convertor bump out on the floor. The mounting points for 77-78 are also less "universal". Putting different seats into 240's and 260's is easier than putting different seats into 77-78 280's. I know this isn't a generic seat replacement thread, but I'm now rockin' Fiero seats. Most comfortable seats right out of the factory that I've ever pressed butt into. Have you measured the width of the 350Z seats?

Yup. The ability to use the same arm on either side went away when they changed to the 77-78 design. With the later design, the lock body itself is interchangeable to either side, but the arms are unique to each side. It's all because of the shape of the shaft sticking out the back of the lock body and the corresponding hole where the arm goes onto the lock. The shaft and hole on the early design is symmetric, but the hole on the later design is not. I'm not sure why they ever changed the shape of that linkage, but if I had to guess, it was because they were trying to fix the issue where the back of the lock body would deform and smear with use and not work anymore because it had become too smooshed. (The reason you used that coat hanger fix.) I would surmise they believed the new design was more robust than the early versions. I don't know about how many lock cycles you get for each design before they fail, but I do know that the later designs do eventually suffer the same fate as the earlier versions. It may take more cycles to get there, but they all eventually fail in the same sorta way. The big difference after all these years, however, is that you can replace your early design locks with cheap replacements. And until the new product offering from Zcardepot that was no replacement option with the later versions. So what may have been an advantage of having a more robust design is actually now a hindrance (until now) because you can't get replacements. I expect that Zcardepot's locks will fail in the exact same way as the early version locks did, but at least now you can repair or replace them when that happens. And you and I may be dust by the time that happens. As for how your modified arm fits onto the lock, I say it's not as tight as the originals because of the gaps on the sides. It's been a while since I looked at lock stuff, but I believe that the originals fit more snugly on the shafts. I thought the only gap was where the dead travel was needed. I have a box of lock stuff around here somewhere and I might have some of the new design locks. I'll take a look when I get a chance.

Nice. Not as tight of a fit on the shaft as the original arm, but looks like it would work. One other thing to consider though... Are you sure you've got enough linkage travel to lock and unlock the door? I don't remember how much dead travel there was on the original version, but since you're adapting one hole style to another shaft shape, you might have changed the amount of travel. Also might be nice to take a good close-up pic of the centering springs for those who aren't familiar. I took a look through my old lock pics (get it?) and I didn't take any of those. I was in such a hurry to get my locks back together that I didn't do a great job of documenting my work.

Second. That looks great!

Haha!! Exactly! I knew my bud has my back when I throw that stuff out there!! One of the greatest movies ever. As a matter of fact, I was considering Waco Kid as my nickname here, but didn't want to continuously field the question "Are you originally from Texas?" So I went for something a little more realistic. OK, a lot more realistic. I also considered Mongo, Black Bart, and Governor Le Petomane (you should look that one up...)

"As chairman of the welcoming committee, it is my privilege to extend a laurel, and hearty handshake."

Well I hope I'm not sounding like a know it all either as I'm certainly no carb expert. Heck, I've never even taken the 72 versions apart. Haha! Jarvo, Thanks for the info on the 72 alignment cones. I've held the 72 versions and looked them over casually but they weren't mine, so as much as I wanted to, I couldn't disassemble them. And I'm loony, but if I was mixing and matching parts and had binding pistons, I would heat and dig out the existing nubs, make myself an alignment tool, fixture and lock the chamber into it's new correct position, and epoxy inject myself a new set of nubbies. A little release agent on the chambers before fixturing.... Clearly overkill, and a good example of why why my projects take ten thousand times longer than normal!

Without seeing the parts myself, I can't tell you where the interference is, but dropping it sure doesn't help. It doesn't have to be bent much. A thousandth in the wrong spot would probably be enough to cause the binding you're experiencing. Think about it this way... The only "seal" between the upper side and the lower side of that suction piston is the close fitting (but non-contact) dimensions of the OD of the piston in the ID of the suction chamber. Doesn't take much distortion to cause interference. Out of round chamber. Out of round piston. Bent damper tube, Bent needle. Bent mounting tab on chamber. The reason the binding goes away with the screws not installed is that the chamber and piston can squirm around just enough in whatever direction it wants to in order to move without binding. Doesn't have to be a lot of interference, and doesn't have to be a lot of squirm. You'll figure it out, and hopefully it's as easy as swapping out the piston and chamber. Maybe you'll have to remove the nubbies, maybe you'll get lucky. As for the alignment pins.... You really only need two alignment pins to establish repeatable positioning. That's why a third pin on the rear screw is unnecessary. On the flat tops, the nubbies are actually cone shaped and that shape does a better job of establishing position than a straight sided cylinder. Are the 72's cone shaped or straight sided?

I second the skepticism on it being a 10K mile car. I suspect it's a 110K mile car. Pics or it didn't happen. Redardless, however... Welcome aboard!

Best of luck with the replacement parts. Hope that fixes your carb issues. While you're waiting for parts to arrive, can you take a couple close-up shots of the suction chambers and the top of the carb bodies where the nubbies stick up? I've never seen those alignment pins on anything other than the flat top carbs. Sounds like they started that process in 72 and went on like that through 74. So your carbs don't have any provision for aligning the nozzle underneath? Sounds like (unlike the previous years) your nozzle position is fixed and the suction chamber is (was) the movable entity?

Cool. Hope some of the concoction works. Anyone know what type of binder they typically use in that composite stuff?

Haha! Ooops... Sorry. Mums the word. Good luck!