Captain Obvious

That sounds cool... Have you got any pics? Can you get to the spare tire without a screwdriver?

Post a couple good pics of the engine bay. Maybe there's something related to the conversion from flat top to round top that might show up in the pics? Are you still running the 73 balance tube? Have you talked to ZT about your carbs? From what I've seen, they are more than happy to provide assistance to get thier stuff running properly.

Figured as much. So after you verify that your float bowl level is correct and move to tuning with the engine running, here's an extensive collection of SU tuning information. It's from one of the stickys at ZCAR.com, and you should read, read, and read: carb tuning; can't find Norm's procedure - ZCAR.COM If you can't tune your SU's after studying all the info in the above thread, then you should just take it to someone else. And yeah, that Unisynch should come in handy.

Nice knob. I like the insert. Would look out of place in a Z car, but it's cool! As for the machines, I've spent at least three times more on the tooling for my lathe than the basic machine itself. Taper attachment is very useful. Milling attachment is as well, but you're right. A dedicated mill is better. If you're holding out for a mill though, then be warned... The home shop grade small mills are very desirable, and are priced accordingly. It's counter-intuitive, but full sized used mills like the ubiquitous Bridgeport can usually be had for cheaper than the home shop grade smaller stuff like Atlas, Millrite, and Burke.

My pleasure. That wire fix seems as good as a way as any to fix the problem short of resorting to new parts. So you already ordered the new locks off ebay? Just toss them in a box and hold onto them in case the coat hanger fix doesn't last. Oh, and one thing to remember is that the ones coming from ebay are keyed different than what you already have, so if you do eventually switch to the new locks, you'll either have to re-key them all to match or you'll have to carry multiple keys.

Excellent. I'm quite familiar with the 10K so if you've got any questions that come up with it, I can probably help there. My lathe is the little sister to yours and mine is definitely older than I am. The saying as was told to me... "Once you have a lathe, it will become so useful that you'll never be able to figure out how you managed to live so long without one." I can personally attest to the validity of that statement.

tamo3, That is a very common failure of the Z car door locks. Replacing the cylinders is probably the best way to take care of it, but here's some threads that show a different way of dealing with it: http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/open-zcar-discussion/40683-door-lock-repair-s30s.html http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/open-zcar-discussion/45114-how-s30-door-lock-coat-hanger-repair.html

You said thickness, but I'm assuming you meant inside diameter? If that's the case, then you need something close to 3/16 ID. It's not a critical fit since you're not going to be running the car with it installed. Just something snug enough that it doesn't leak or slip off accidentally while you are verifying the bowl levels. Clear PVC would be a good choice for short term gasoline contact and you can probably find something suitable in the lawnmower repair section of your local home and garden supply store.

I was never planning to make a bunch of these, but if you were, the device you need is called a duplicating attachment for your lathe. Such devices are relatively common in the woodworking realm. Not as common in metal working venues, but certainly any well tooled wood shop should have such an attachment available to be fitted to one or more of their lathes. If you had a wood lathe with a duplicating attachment you would use a template as your guide and you could crank out multiple copies of the wooden part of the knobs easily and quickly. The metal base would still be an issue, but the wood part would be easy. I am tooled more for metal working though, and have no such device. That's why all my stuff was made one-off by eye. So your school has a machine shop... Does they have a wood shop as well?

Wayne, It looks awesome. Thanks again for all the great work you've done on this! It's an amazing piece of work!

Or for people who are allowed to... Change to carbs. I've got a great set of flat tops sitting all lonely in a box in the garage,

Haha! Yeah, but the prototype for this one occurred in 1973 or 74. The mass production is already over and long gone. You're thinking there might be a market for analog replacements for the stock analog ECU? With the digital options available already, I think that would be a hard sell. I'm not sure what you mean with the comment about adjustability. Are you wishing for a way to tweak the original analog ECU?

I'm with ya. I wouldn't mind having a drop in replacement for the ECU that is digital at the core instead of the current analog design. From the outside, it would appear to work pretty much the same as stock, but just better tuned, and more consistent. Famous last words, but I don't think it would be that difficult. I haven't really thought about how many A/D's you would need, but I bet there's a micro available with enough on board. As for the cost of building an analog ECU from scratch using the TR-7 schematic... Wow. A one off? You don't want to know. You don't even want to think about it. :pirate: I would guess hundreds if you have contacts in the industry. Over a thousand if you don't? And then there's no way you would be able to tune it. You know why there are resistors soldered in parallel on the stock ECM's? Because that's how the factory characterized and tuned the behavior. They probed points on the board under power and then tweaked the resistor values until they got what they wanted.

Right. Sorry, I thought that was what you meant. If you're looking to reuse all the original inputs and outputs, then you don't need a schematic. All you need to know is how the ECU functions as a black box. You need fuel, temperature, and time maps. All you need to know is WHAT the box does, you don't need to know HOW it does it. For that, you don't need a schematic. Your PIC programmers could care less what's really inside the original box. They just want to know how the output should react to the inputs, right? A schematic won't tell you that.

I think there's a misunderstanding here... Nobody has suggested swapping a TR-7 ECU into the Z. The only reason we're even looking at it is because Blue turned up a schematic for the thing. I wouldn't try to get it to work in the Z, I was just interested in knowing more about what's inside the ECU and because they're both Bosch L-Jet systems, there are probably some similarities. Heh. Hasn't that pretty much been done already? They call that Megasquirt? Different form factor, but that's what you got, right? Well, I've got a schematic for our output section. You do the input section, and we'll trade, OK? Then we need other people to do some of the intermediate blocks, and we're done! (And I've already got a "Boost" button. I'll post about it sometime when I get energetic.)

That's got to be the most common sentence I've seen in Z car ads. I see that almost all the time! Has anyone ever seen an ad that says "Engine blew and it's been sitting since"? Congrats. She's a beauty! Bountiful suspension tree too. I planted one in my back yard, but it didn't take. Must like warmer weather. [ATTACH=CONFIG]60015[/ATTACH]

That TR-7 ECU is probably a couple generations newer than the one we have. I haven't seen any schematics for our ECU's, but I suspect there are sections that would be very similar despite the newer design. Not all of it, but sections maybe. However, I can attest that those similarities do not extend to the output stage. A while ago I drew up a schematic for the output stage of our ECU, and ours is very different than the TR-7.

I suspect it contains the exact same RTD design as the water temp sensor. The curves are identical. I bet it's the exact same guts repackaged differently mechanically. If you got desperate enough, you could probably physically modify a WTS and stuff it where the IAT sensor goes.

Excellent! Sorry I couldn't be of more assistance. Glad someone else knew what was going on!!

Far be it from me to cast aspersions on an easy fix that took care of the problem, but a clogged fuel filter doesn't really fit the symptoms. However, whatever works, right? If that fixed it, then more power to ya! So before you replaced the fuel filter... What did it do when you floored it? Did it have good power on the highway when you really put your foot into it?

Sounds like you were just expecting too much too quick. One hurdle at a time... If you have to use a little choke until it's up tp temp, then do so. Worry about fouling the plugs later. If you aren't billowing black clouds of eye burning fumes, then I wouldn't worry about it. If it dies when you hit the throttle it's probably running lean. However, if you aren't yet up to temp with the engine, then it will compound the issue. Think about it this way... The colder the engine, the richer it wants the mixture. Where do you have your nozzles set right now, and why did you put them where they are? As for the clear tube method, here's a description and a pic: a) Pull the black rubber fuel line off the bottom of the bowl and drain the bowl Replace the black rubber line with a clear tube that is long enough to loop back up against the bowl body without kinking. c) Fill the carb bowl back up again using a funnel and another piece of tube connected to the fuel inlet nipple. d) As you pour the fuel in, the float will start to rise. When the float rises far enough, it will close off the float valve, and the carb will stop accepting additional fuel. e) Measure the bowl level and compare to the specs on picture EF-46 of the FSM

Haha! Well I'm not ready to claim any progress towards determining what's really going on with z_ya's car. There are still lots and lots and lots of things that could be wrong. I'm just in brainstorm mode trying to come up with hairbrained ideas that fit the problem symptoms well. I think that a voltmeter and a fuel pressure gauge in the skilled hands of someone who has messed with L-jet in the past could shed a lot of light in a short period of time.

How long are you keeping the choke on for? Another way to ask the same question... How quickly are you thinking your car will run well without the choke? The reason I ask is that in my experience it has been "minutes" before the engine runs as desired with no choke at all. Are you thinking that you can start it and then immediately push the choke off and expect it to run with no choke? By the way, any performance issues with the carbs could potentially be traced back to problems with the float bowl level. Did you ever verify your float bowl level using the clear tube method?

Zed, That's a well thought out interesting idea. I don't know if that's what's going on in this case, but it's a neat thought. Move the key to ON - Fuel pump runs and builds up pressure in the rail. Move the key to START - Fuel pump stops - Cold start valve dumps fuel quickly into the intake until the fuel rail pressure is gone. Quick blast of fuel from the CSV is enough to get the car to start, but with no pressure in the rail, there's nothing to feed the injectors when the key is moved back to ON - Engine stalls. Maybe on the second start attempt there's just enough pressure in the system to get over the hump? Maybe on the second start attempt, the thermotime switch has opened and the CSV isn't activated which saves fuel for the injectors instead? Interesting... :bulb:

No. Measuring +12 volts on both sides of an injector is not necessarily a problem. The way the system works is this... One side of each injector is always connected to +12 through a "dropping resistor". You should always measure about +12 on that side of the injector. The other side of each injector is connected to the ECU. Inside is the ECU is a switch (a transistor) which, when closed, connects that side of the injector to ground. When the transistor switch is open, no current flows through the injector and you will measure +12 on both sides of the injector. When the transistor switch is closed, current flows through the injector (which causes the injector to open), and you will measure +12 on one side of the injector, and ground on the other. However... The amount of time that the transistor switch is closed is very short, and your typical voltmeter will not pick it up. Your typical voltmeter will average the signal in some way, and since the amount of time that the injector is connected to ground is such a small amount of time, it will essentially average out to +12. Does that help? Does that make any sense? I'm not sure that your mechanic is familiar with fuel injected systems.