blitzkraig

Well I've checked the butterflys, the floats, the pistons, and the needles. The pistons have some resistance when I do the drop test but they still hit bottom and clink. Anyway, the car is still running rich with the mixture nuts leaned out all the way. My only guess is that the needles in my rebuild kit were wrong (too thin), or my jets are too big. Should I mothball my currently working 3 screw carbs for their jets and needles?

I purchased some stainless hydraulic lines from MSA, including one for the clutch. While I went to start my car when I was swapping carbs I noticed some smoking by the battery. I ran around with extinguisher in hand and saw smoke coming from a now burst and leaking clutch hose. This is what I found. The plastic spurting out of the steel braiding makes it seem like there was too much pressure (doubt that's the problem). Some of the rubber at the end melted onto the hose. So that and the smoking makes be believe it was way too hot. But the car had been cooling down from running for 1/2 an hour. My only guess is that somehow there was electric current going through it? Any other ideas while I'm waiting for a replacement hose from MSA?

Might be a little too far north for ya, but here's a shot http://www.autoshoppernetwork.com/Imports/datsun_car.html Good luck

Before I start my second rant, I'd like to thank Victor for that wonderful post. It's a very well written observation of the world and I agree with everything in it. Ok, time to explain myself a little further. I'm majoring in Business Management (I take more economics classes than the Economics majors!) at UC Santa Cruz (probably the most liberal of UCs, so there's the reason for my views). I will probably get a decent job that will provide me with at least 45K or more per year. I believe in a hard work ethic, and I also believe that the people earning the big bucks really do deserve to be well compensated. Heck I don't want doctors or leaders of huge companies to have to live the same as me, they work HARD! However, there are also people who work hard but are WAY over compensated. Take the CEO of the NYSE for instance. He apparently was getting paid over 100 million a year! What exactly does one do that deserves that much money? To me, that man should be sweating all the time and be mentally dead everyday. But I'm sure he just sits in an air conditioned office and goes over data, talks with people, makes critical decisions, yadda yadda. Seriously, how much stuff can you really buy to make up for all that hard work done? Can you buy 100 million dollars worth of stuff? I don't think I could buy more than 10 million dollars worth a year. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a marxist. I know socialism has failed repeatedly, and capitalism has been keeping our nation at the top. I just think what we have is raw capitalism in need of major refinement. We have one shot at life, why should some people who work ridiculously hard (either physically or mentally) get paid millions upon millions, while other people who work just as hard have trouble paying for their next meal. Seems like such a waste..... I'm sorry if I've angered anyone with my views, I just need to air it out. Hopefully our love of Zs can keep us from taking this too personally

Yowzers man, that car's going to need a lot of patch panel replacement. If you've never done panel replacement (or welding for that matter) you'll want someone else to do it. And if a bodyman does it, it's going to cost you a pretty penny. My advice, keep looking.

The latest Forbes report says the the rich are once again getting richer. The wealth of the richest 400 people went up 10%! And the CNBC webpage article on this has a subtitle that says 'What a relief'. !!!!!!!!!#$@#%$@#%@! Stuff like this makes me feel like my head is going to explode! Profits are going up across the board and people like us are getting laid off left and right! The unemployment rate is hovering around what? 6% now? AND THE RICH ARE GETTING RICHER!?!?!?! $H!T! I'll be graduating from college in 4 months and I'll probably be lucky to find a job that pays even a LIVING WAGE, and the RICH ARE GETTING RICHER?!?!?! Seriously though, at what point is someone earning too much money? Once they've passed 500K a year are they really doing anything useful with their money???? It's either just accumlating in some bank account or being used to buy pointless crap! ACK....... Sorry this may not be the right place to vent my frustration on this topic, but I've no where else to go. And the voices in my head won't shutup until I've expressed myself. Grrr......:dead:

Damn that car is bitchin! I'm no hippie but I'm still from Santa Cruz, CA and can appreciate an ecofriendly Z!

The Zgarage website says you need a distributor from a manual 280ZX with the E12-80 module. The E12-93 needs the car computer to work I think.

Ok, I'm going to take the float bowls apart and check everything again. I'm also going to be sure the butterflies are closing all the way (I did unscrew them and took em out to clean). The choke assembly isn't catching. I put a small amount of oil on the seat so it slides up and down really well. The one thing that seems out of wack is that the pistons don't slide up and down as easily as on my current carbs(they're kinda sticky, but they moved fine when I was trying to tune them on the engine). Can I use some light sandpaper (500 grit) if cleaning them again doesn't help? I'm sure it isn't the engine because I have a set of 3 screw carbs on it and it's running good. And another quick question, can the mixture setting be changed with idle throttle setting? IE: throttle opened up quite a bit with a lean mixture, or throttle pretty much closed with rich mixture. I ask this because I tried tuning the carbs currently on the car a little better, and the lifter pin test shows the carbs are about right but it's idling fairly high (1500-2000 RPM), and the throttle screws are backed completely out. Thanks for all replies so far. I'm planning on buying the Just SUs video from Ztherapy soon

Ok I get the feeling that I'm missing something here. From what appears to be setup currently on my car, the 2 screws on the linkage between the carbs are useless. Neither are touching the plates. Nor is the one screw on the balance tube, it isn't touching the plate either. So I'm left with the two throttle adjustment screws on the carbs (just behind the tops), and the mixture nuts on the bottom. Am I right that these are the only ones that really need adjustment? When trying to tune the car the throttle adjustment screws on the carbs end up being screwed out to the point of not touching the plates, and the mixture nut is screwed up as far as it will go into the carb. Smoke still comes out the exhaust and the spark plugs are midnight black. I set the float level at 9/16" (with fuel top upside down, and float lever just barely touching the needle seat). I found this measurement on other posts. Is this right? For such a "simple setup" these things are driving me completely insane.:tapemouth

I'm trying to swap on some 4 screw SUs that I finished polishing a while back and I can't get them lean enough. I set the needels in the piston correctly. I start off with the idle adj nut two full turns down, and the throttle adj screws 1.5 turns in. I end up with the idle adj nuts screwed in all the way, and the throttle adj screws out until they have no effect and the car is still running extremely rich! Anyone have any ideas??? Maybe worn throttle bushings?:sleepy:

I've installed their kit on my 71 in the garage with no problems. The hardest part of doing it yourself is getting out the old bushing sleeves.

Small write up on the steps needed to get a T5 from an 81-83 280zxt into an early Z. Enjoy http://people.ucsc.edu/~crearly/T5install.htm

The majority of sunroofs I have seen on early Zs have been horribly installed. Either they leak, or they retain water in the area surrounding the window and eventually start a major rust problem in the roof (the Z already has enough trouble with rust). And as mentioned before, the Z gets it chassis strength from the unibody design, and cutting a big hole in the roof isn't very helpful. However, if installed correctly they can be a great addition to a Z.

Ok. Since I never had any pictures showing the needle position, I thought I was supposed to sit the needles all the way down til the step isn't showing. Durh, back to tuning. Well I start off with the throttle adj screws in about 1.5 turns and the idle adj screws out two turns. I end up with the throttle screws both all the way out until they don't make contact and the idle is still about 1000 rpm, I'm ok with that. So I move on to the idle adj screws. Push the lifting pin slightly and the rpms go and stay up. So I keep screwing in the idle adj screw until it stops and it is still running rich! ACK. I give up for the night and am putting back the dirty 3 screws. Any ideas for this weekend?

I have two sets of SU carbs, one 3 screw, one four screw. The three screws are what I have on the engine currently and they run just great. I polished and rebuilt the 4 screws to put on and just tried to tune them. However the idle adj screw is screwed in all the way and the car is still running extremely rich (the sparkplugs are black). The only idea I have is that I have the wrong needles in the carbs. The rebuild kit I got is made by Beck Arnley World Parts (from a good auto store, not kragen) and it came with two sets of needles. The only differences I see on them is that two are marked with HWJ1 and the other two HWJ2. I've read many posts on how to tune these and I have no idea what to do now.:cross-eye

Ok so I put in some cleaner that needs about 3-6 hours run through time. I decided to check the temp manually and I guess my guage is wrong (it reads 3/4 at 180degrees). I didn't think it would be the guage since most everything else is this car has treated me so well. I should have checked that sooner though. So should I replace the sending unit or the guage first?

Before I tore my car down a while back I had been having some overheating issues. I replaced the radiator and cap, thermostat, and purchased an electric fan from MSA. While my engine was out I replaced the water pump and freeze plugs (noting a LOT of crud in the coolant passages between cylinder jackets). I just got the Z back on the road this week and last night while I was driving through traffic my temp guage kept creeping up to the red several times at stoplights. Today I was determined to figure out what was wrong. I thought it was either the clogged coolant passages or my carbs are too lean (haven't tuned the ones on the car yet because they were on it before and worked fine, and I'm going to swap on polished ones for tuning). My coworker gave my a coolant system pressure checker and everything looks good on that end. I turned the idle adj screw (on the bottom of the carbs) out just an 8th of a turn and took the car out for a spin. It seems to have worked I guess because the guage only went up 3/4 of the way, but that still seems hotter than before I had all this trouble. So what to do now? Should I still flush the coolant system for good measure? And also, the trigger for the electric fan from MSA only turns on at about 3/4 up the guage. Should I get a different trigger than activates the fan sooner? (I was thinking a switch from hotronics http://www.hotronicsproducts.com/cooling.htm) Thanks for any replies. I realize I'm bringing up a topic that has been beaten to death before, but none of the usual solutions seem to be working.

So I got an Exide battery from kragens about 9 months ago and my Z ran just fine (except for starter problems). My tranny went out and I decided to do a bunch of stuff so the battery has been sitting on a shelf for about 6 months. I finally have my car back on the road and the battery just needed to be charged. Now however I'm getting erratic behavior. Sometimes the car will crank just fine. Other times it cranks really really slow like the battery is almost dead, but it still starts if I'm persistent. Is there a new Interstate battery in my near future? Thanks

Bleah, just got exhaust installed on my car today. Stock L24 with 280zx dist conversion, 6-1 MSA header, and Supertrapp muffler. I sound like a friggin rice rocket (wanted a nice deep almost V8 sound). Oh well, I'll live with it. At least it's one of the original rice rockets, and I built the thing!

Hmmm...sorry bout that, not sure what's goin on with my page. Guess it can't support that much space....anyway, nice car Gav!

http://people.ucsc.edu/~crearly/Gav240zDualPipes.avi Everyone enjoy, don't drool too much

Oh, the 280zx dist conversion.:stupid: Well.....have you tried hooking jumper cables to another car to see if you have enough power to keep it going? Does it actually start running when in the start position or does it just sound like the engine is firing? Is the module new or from a junkyard? I pulled 3 from the local pick n pull in case some didn't work. I'm actually very surprised my conversion worked without a hitch. Just be sure the firing order is adjusted right. Bypass the ballast resistor and check that the coil to module connections are right! Good luck!

I think it took me a while to get it started because the fuel needed to work it's way all the way down the lines. Not really sure what problem you're referring to. Mine now starts with little effort. Anyone got suggestions with the flame from the carb? I'm going to drive it to my work about a 1/2 mile from my house where I can use a coworker's timing light. Should I worry about driving that short distance untuned?

Just another post about a user's Z finally hitting the road again. Took a while to get started and warmed up but it runs. Definitely needs a muffler, it sounds like a biplane. I took it for a spin around the block and the T5 swap seems to have no problems. Just curious, what's wrong with the timing when a flame comes out of one of the carbs when I rev the motor? I'll post a video of the car running around in a day or two! YAHOOOO! I have a car again!!!!!! :stupid: