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I actually went and test drove one with a six speed the other day A few things I personally noticed Negatives -The stock exhaust was really quiet, especially below 3000rpm. The blower motor was on at about half speed because it was a fairly warm day (~90* F) and the sound of the blower completely overpowered the sound of the motor at sub 3000RPM speeds. -The shifter felt very insulated against the harmonics from the motor, so it made it very difficult to tell RPM based on the vibration of the shifter. -On each door the release handle for the latch on the inside felt kinda cheap, like it came out of a chevrolet cavalier or something. A lot of the rest of the interior seemed kinda poorly built. Albeit not near as bad as when the first 350Zs came out -Shifting action felt kind of vague to me, not crisp at all. I suppose its like most other new cars ive sat in and messed with however, so maybe im just used to my 4 speed feeling very 'mechanical' Positives -Motor definitely had a good amount of power -Brakes were very good at doing what they were supposed to -Car handled pretty well for a stock car that weighs as much as it does All in all, I think for a daily driver it is a decent deal for what you get. The one I drove was stickered at about 27k so it was pretty bare bones, but it had enough to keep me happy I think. One thing I would not call it however is a true sports car. Maybe I am just used to the older more spartan sports cars that had more soul than refinement, but this car felt somewhat sterile and a little too quiet.

I sure hope she turns up ok. She was always very friendly whenever I needed some info or parts, unlike the rudeness ive gotten from a few of the other zcar part sellers.

Aren't there a lot of legal issues with this? Although i'm sure that would vary by state.

Wow, hot water I'll remember that. I had previously read about carefully prying it apart. I'll be interested to see if anyone comes up with anything good. I have a new set of 'euro' spec taillights that i'm gonna swap in, then I wanna restore the original US spec tails.

I'm pretty sure your 72 motor should already have flattop pistons Being a 72 240z, I think your motor will have the 8mm rod bolts. Phred(I think) has suggested that if you are gonna be building a motor that had 8mm rod bolts, go ahead and get the ARP 8mm bolts because they are actually stronger than the original 9mm bolts that came in later L-series motors. I've seen a lot of people building stroker motors looking for L24 rods that were originally equipped with 9mm bolts because they were supposedly stronger? I would probably take Phred's word above others because he is our resident engine building guru. A lot of people going for an N/A buildup seem to lean towards the N42 head as being the best all around (short of shaving down other heads like a p90). You will find a lot of valuable info by searching the archives. These questions have come up in the past in some shape or form over the years.

I wonder if this one's a fred flintstone mobile The visible rust sure makes one think so

Good to see its not too bad and that noone was hurt (i'm guessing since it wasnt mentioned) Is there any difference between the euro bumper and the US bumper structurally besides lack of holes? Maybe if they cant straighten it out you could get a good US bumper and weld up any extra holes and have them chrome it then? Chances are they could put it back so it at least looks normal. I think a previous owner damaged the front bumper on my Z at one point and had it straightened out. The mounting points are all screwy now, but shimming with washers appropriately lets it sit normal.

I've looked at a lot of engine compartments on this site (before the upgrade) and noticed a lot of people yanked the servo controller and servo diaphragm and plugged the holes on the balance tube. How's the drivability afterwards? My car is up on stands and waiting on some other work before I can fire it up, so I thought i'd get some opinions here in the meantime. I pulled all the other smog stuff(air pump gear). The hoses were in pretty rough shape and I wasn't about to spend good $ on replacements! No smog checks for my 72 here in TX. I still have the servo parts, just I'd need to get a vacuum tap with a 1/8" NPT base now since I already tapped the hole for my NPT plug :stupid:

Isn't it bakelite? Thats what it feels like to me. That stuff gets really fragile with age

I had my 240z shipped from California to Texas about a year and a half ago. If I had to do it again, I would without a doubt drive out there with my truck and rent a trailer and pull it home myself. I ended up paying around $800 for insured shipping from a reputable company thinking everything would be alright, but they still managed to damage my frame by improperly securing it. Yay for stretched out/torn drainage holes in the rear frame rails! Plus, when a car is shipped via these large car carrier semis, they have multiple cars that are to be dropped off at different points, and new cars picked up. Your car will be pulled off and on that trailer MANY times before it actually gets to you. Bottom line is, I think i'm lucky because it could have turned out MUCH WORSE! :dead: If this car is in good shape right now, I would seriously consider getting it yourself.

Carl: Actually I called Courtesy while the forums were down and asked them if they could still get the water control valve. They can still order it from Nissan, but it comes out to $51.74 or something like that. I'm just gonna plug it off, having better idle on the few cold days we have in Texas is not worth $51.74 to me when more pressing things need to be bought! Ed: Guess i'll check Ace tomorrow for taps. I've been working on plugging some balance tube holes up (1/8" and 1/4" bspt), home depot and lowes were both pretty useless for npt taps.

I see, makes sense If I were to plug this hole up on the thermostat housing, I guess it would be appropriate to replace that y-pipe on the other side of the motor with a simple angled pipe running from the heater hose to the inlet line hose? I'm not too concerned with original appearance on things like this, and a simpler engine bay is a definite plus to me. If it wasnt so late I would run out to the garage and start reading up out of some of my manuals.

I remember seeing a post a long time ago on zcar.com from a guy claiming to have gotten 35mpg ONCE on one trip that was all highway. He had ztherapy SUs, an n42 head and some headers on an L28 iirc. He mentioned he got 28mpg usually during "normal" use. Not sure if this is one of those fish stories or something, but I was impressed

What I mean is when the thermostat is still closed up, how does the water flow about within the block/head, or does it even flow at all? Thats what some were posting about on zcar.com. They were basically saying that the line thats supposed to go through the carbs around to that y-pipe on the passenger side was the only path for water to flow before the thermostat opened up. So without it there would be little hotspots until the water in the thermo housing got hot enough to open the thermostat.

Nah, everything was NPT that I saw. I've seen some people post about drilling and tapping it with an NPT tap and using a standard plug then. Kinfish mentioned a company called Parker Fittings that sells BSPT threaded stuff in the US, you could try that. I've read some stuff about blocking this off being bad. I'm not sure about the internal coolant path inside the block, but people have said that the coolant doesn't really flow when the thermostat isn't open if this line is plugged up. Apparently it can cause hotspots inside the block around the cylinders and result in a blown head gasket or something worse. But then again, i've read about a lot of people plugging this off and being fine. It would be nice to have a diagram showing the paths of all the oil and coolant lines inside the motor. The FSM diagrams are kinda vague

Thanks for the offer Saro, I ordered this piece from Courtesy this morning(they didn't have any in stock) and should be able to pick it up Tuesday.

Thanks for the replies. Guess i'll stop wasting my time checking out hardware stores and just make the drive up to courtesy tomorrow

The little water outlet on the thermostat housing (the one thats supposed to run through the intake and around the back of the motor to that little y pipe) has pretty much had it. (see picture) Does anyone know where I can find this? I tried several parts stores, which told me to check out some hardware stores, no luck there either. I'm not even sure what type of threads this has. I found a few fittings that had similar diameter tapered threads, but the pitch seemed to be off ever so slightly. How are tapered thread dimensions specified? If I know that, I can probably find something that will work on mcmaster-carr or something when their website is working for me again (it's not right now). I figure i'll call courtesy nissan tomorrow (since they are about 45 minutes from me) and see if they have it, but i'm not expecting much really on that front. Any help anyone could give me would be much appreciated!

I remember reading in another thread that only something like 11 of the LY motors were ever produced, someone please correct me if i'm remembering wrong.

mtdripo, I had the same problem when I installed a pertronix unit in my 72 240z dist. There is a diagram floating around telling how to wire it up to work right with the original 4 wire inductive loop tachs (in almost all the 240s). I tried this, but still had a problem that sounds like what yours is doing. The tach would work fine up to 3000 RPM then it would snap back to zero and bounce around after that. Not sure how it worked at sustained higher RPMs because I chickened out and took it back to my house at low rpm when I was troubleshooting. I ended up buying a tach from a 280Z and swapping the internals into my 240Z, although I haven't gotten that to work yet (it sort of worked, went to around the right RPMs but it bounced around a lot, even with the correct resistor inline on the negative trip). I think the problem may be a bad ground on the molex plug going into the back of the tach wiring. Some other more urgent stuff came up, and I need to fix that before I can get the tach problems sorted out. One thing to note about my 240Z tach was I noticed a certain resistor(see attached pic) seemed to have some heat damage, I think I remember reading about some people replacing this resistor and having their problems gone away as a result. I would have tried this, except for the fact that I shattered the PCB in the back of my original tach popping it free from the epoxy stuff holding it into the housing This thread might be useful to you. http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6814&highlight=zx+tach+diagram

Just went out and measured 8x1.25

I was browsing around on their site the other day and noticed their latest special issue is on the fairlady from the PS30 to the Z33. http://www.bestmotoring.jp/digest/BMS/index.html Has anyone seen this video in full yet? Alan? Kats? I've seen other best motoring videos before and they all seemed to be top notch. I think i'll be getting a friend of mine over there to buy me a copy and mail it to me.