Ownallday

Came back to add onto something else that helped reduce the vibration. Finally replaced all 4 struts with Koni Yellow Adjustable struts. WOW! What a difference that made! I honestly think the struts I had in the car might've been the original ones from the 70s! However adding new struts reduced my vibration by about another 50%. So I'd say I only have about 15-25% of the vibration left in the steering wheel from before. Now I only feel vibration when going from approx 40mph to 60 mph but it's a lot less noticeable and doesn't really bother me at all anymore.

Thank you, went ahead and did some reading. Thank you, me and my friend are the ones who is building the engine, he does not have experience with these engines but he has rebuilt many engines, I am mostly there to help as I am still learning. Most shops want too much money nowadays just to tear a motor apart. Decided I will be going with 87mm flat top pistons and bore (forged pistons since I can't find any new cast pistons), Stage 3 cam, higher compression but I will be sticking with the E88 head for now to save on money since it's already a rebuilt head and does not need any work done at a machine shop. Hoping to gain at least another 50hp (that's on top of the fact my cylinder compression is low and probably drying me of power), and hoping to have a reliable motor for the years to come. that can be driven more often. One last question, would it be wise to get the engine balanced too? I wouldn't mind being able to rev the engine beyond 6k (which is the most my motor currently goes). But I heard it's not necessary to for these engines. Some feedback on that would be great!

Thank you for the help! I know my head is pretty bad but it's what I will have to stick with for now until I can find a better deal for something in my area when I can dish out some more money. The E88 I have is already rebuilt, ported, polished etc. Any recommendations for non forged pistons? I can't find anything with an 86 or 87mm bore for less than $1000. With a stage 3 would anything need to be done to the rocker arms or springs or will stock components work fine?

Thanks for your input, hopefully this is the case Not entirely sure if the Ross Forged Pistons have valve reliefs. And I agree forged pistons seem overkill but the options in terms of pistons are pretty limited right now for Z cars.

Would 91 octane be enough? My biggest concern is also would I have to worry about the flat top pistons and valves potentially hitting with the bigger cam? And smog isn't an issue for me Smog isn't an issue for me

Hey guys, I have a 1978 Datsun 280z, Currently running an N42 Block with a rebuilt E88 head from a 260z (least desirable from what I hear but was all I could find at the time), I have triple weber dcoe 40s and headers from topendperformance. I also have an MSD ignition 6AL and 280zx Dizzy and a rebuilt 5 speed with the longer gear rations I am also running a felpro 1.2mm head gasket which has 89mm bores (My L28 bores are 86mm). Also have a lightweight flywheel to add to all this. I have had this setup for almost 2 years now and never touched the block in the 5 years I have owned the car. The car also weighs a surprising 2460lbs As of right now my compression is pretty low in the cylinders. The compression measured ~100-120psi in the cylinders. My car burns about a qt of oil every ~1500-2000 miles which all leaves me to believe the rings are toast. My car is also losing coolant in the overflow tank and have to fill it up constantly after every couple hundred miles, I only see a very minimal amount of white smoke on cold startup, not really sure what's causing this loss. I plan on tearing apart the engine and rebuilding the block in 2-3 months and wanted to get some info on what is worth it and what isn't. Any input would be great! -With the N42 Block I planned on having the machine shop just honing the block/clean the passages and reusing the original dished pistons with new oem rings and new bearings (According to OZDAT my static compression is 8.280), however I wanted to know if it's worth it to instead bore out the walls to 87mm and run 87mm ross forged flat top pistons from MSA (static compression would be 9.980). Would the power gains be worth it? We only have 91 octane so not sure if Id run into issues with ping or maybe valve clearance? (This is all assuming I get the same 1.2mm felpro headgasket too). -Even though my E88 head was rebuilt (Not sure where or what they did exactly) I plan on changing all the valve seals anyways, however I was looking at maybe potentially getting a Schneider Performance Camshaft kit from MSA, either Stage 2 or Stage 3. I do drive the car mostly on the street with occasional spirited driving in the Canyons and race track about once or twice a year. I have Triple weber DCOE 40s too and not sure if the 40s are too small for either of these cams. Which camshaft kit would be the best suited for what I have and how much power gains could be expected or should I just stick with the stock cam? Any other things I should take into consideration or that I am missing would be greatly appreciated. My friend who is a master tech and works on a ton of engines and cars in general is going to be tearing the engine apart at his house as he is also going to install an aftermarket AC for me and restore the dash while the engine is out.

So the problem was mostly the wheel balance, I rebalanced the wheels and used road force and found the wheels were out of balance when using road force compared to just spinning. This solved about 50%-70% of my shaking at the steering wheel at least based on todays test drive. I now believe the rest of the shaking might possibly be coming from either the hub or struts. You can literally push the struts in with your pinky zero force and they don't come back up after and I have a feeling with lowering springs might be causing some vibration in that area that is transferring back to the wheel. As for the hubs they had a lot of surface rust, I tried to clean them today with what I had but they still felt somewhat ruff after, probably causing the wheels to not sit fully flush but could be wrong. Going to order Koni Yellow Adjustable struts and see how much that helps and clean up the hubs better.

It's mostly in the steering wheel, the car has a super slight vibration from the car itself which is where I think the driveshaft might be causing that there or possibly my blown struts. Or just the more stiff suspension setup I have too. Not really sure. Yeah the s30 has those tension rods. I last checked a couple months ago but I checked the tightness with the car in the air, today I'll double check the tightness on those on the alignment rack. My car does pull to the right.

Aside from inner and outer tie rods and poly bushings for the rack and steering shaft, I haven't touched anything else. I can't feel or see any play, I tried moving the tires side to side and no free movement from the rack or wheels. I checked this after I did my inner and outer tie rods. Originally the rack had play and after doing those two things the play went away.

Noted, I was leaning slightly towards the driveshaft anyways as my next solution. I have no idea if it's ever been replaced so it won't hurt to replace it. I heard the clunk can sometimes be caused by the driveshaft and possibly the axles. The tires are about 1 year old, less than 7k miles on them. The tread is pretty much 80% on them. I use to have movement in the steering rack but went away after replacing to polyurethane bushings. I can't remember if I've replaced that mount or not. I know I did the moustache bar mounts though. I'll most likely order a oem diff mount that be safe eitherway. I heard of something like that, I work at a Toyota dealership so I have the luxury of balancing the wheels. I have tried rotating the tires already and there isn't a difference at all. I replaced them about 3 months ago but I will go ahead and recheck the torque on them. Last time I did it I remember torquing them properly. Thank you for the input. I'll see if I can find a better balancing machine shop.

I know this has been discussed in the past but the solutions haven't worked out for me. I have a 1978 Datsun 280Z. Pretty much all the bushings have been replaced with polyurethane. I have replaced the inner and outer tie rods, front wheel bearings, ball joints were replaced 2 years ago less than 5k miles. I have tokico lowering springs, I also have technotoytuning front and rear control arms. I also have a momo steering wheel. I have a pretty bad vibration coming from the steering wheel. I should also add that I've balanced the tires at least 5 times at this point, and the alignment has been done although I do have about -2 degrees of camber front and rear camber left side is about .4 degrees off compared to the other side which is most likely causing my car to pull to the right. Any other solutions. I do believe my struts are blown but to my knowledge blown struts shouldn't cause vibration. Possibly driveshaft? The car does have the lovely clunk in the rear when accelerating from a stop. I can't tell if there is play in the u joints/half shafts but there is play from the yoke inside the driveshaft (I can rotate it a couple degrees) not sure if that's normal. Any help would be appreciated. Below is a video of the the steering wheel vibration looks like at approximately 65mph.

Yes this is what I want to go for! I guess I will have to tap out the threads for the sensor. Found the lower left hole is a m14x1.5 npt and no sensors are made to fit that. Question, why do you have the fans coming on at 220F? Isn't that a little too hot?

Oh that's interesting, never seen or heard of anything like that. Wonder how accurate it is. I might try an adjustable one out and see if I can fit it in between the shroud somehow. Thanks for the clarification!

For some reason it does on my car from what I noticed. Before the car would warm up pretty damn fast too with the old aluminum radiator and electric fan and that fan sucked but was always on too. Eitherway it be better to have them not come on startup anyways and have them turn on when the car is actually warm enough. Okay good to know someone else has done it. I want to avoid drilling and rethreading my housing but if there isn't another option I'll consider it.

Yes I prefer the look of the electric fan setup looks cleaner and more impressive imo. My car takes way too long to warm up even if I drive off. I have not seen anything on the radiator that would allow me to hook one up. I did look on summit racing. The main thing was just knowing what the threads were for the thermostat housing, I don't exactly wanna drill and rethread the thermostat housing either

Without the fans yes it'll get above 180, have not tested if it'll overheat I turned the car off the second It got past 180 which means in my mind the fans are working too good because sometimes the temp doesn't even get to 160, before this setup even with a 160 thermostat the car would run too hot which is why I replaced the radiator and fans (I had another aluminum radiator and smaller electric fan before this). The rad came with a shroud so yes. The main thing is getting the fans to turn on when the coolant gets to a certain temp so my car can warm up faster on cold starts. They sell sensors for that, the problem is installing it since it'll be aftermarket, I wanted to use the thermostat housing but not sure what the thread sizes are for the 3 front ports I'm not using or the 1 port on the side.

Yes, I actually have a 160 Thermostat, before this setup my car would run too hot which is why I swapped it to a 160 but that didn't solve the issue.. However, my main concern is just getting the fans to only turn on at a certain temp. On startup makes the car take forever to warm up and I have tested without the fans turning on the car will go above 160 just fine.

The radiator doesn't have a spot for a sensor, at least I don't see any. That was the goal to use the relays to activate with a sensor. I knew the possible issues from going clutch to electric. I prefer electric, looks nicer but thats just me. Currently I only have one fan running because my car doesn't even get above 160 degrees F, had this setup for the last couple months, have not had any power/electrical issues yet. I do have an upgraded alternator. As of right now only 1 of the two fans is running since my car doesn't get above 160F at all. I have an upgraded alternator currently, have yet to experience any electrical issues over the last couple months.

I have a 1978 Datsun 280z with a triple weber setup. I currently have installed a Champion Radiator with a dual Spal electric fan setup. As of right now the fans are wired up with relays and the fans turn on with the ignition. The car takes too long to warm up like this and surprisingly the car never goes above ~150-160 degrees F (Which I am not sure if that is too cold). I want to setup the fans to turn on with a thermostat switch that will turn the fans on at 180 degrees F. What would be the best way to install one? I would like to use any of the unused threads on my Thermostat housing (Aside the one used for the temp gauge). If anyone can link one that will work with those threads would be great as I am not sure what size those threads are. Any other ideas are also greatly appreciated.

Funny I actually just saw his website. Not sure why I couldn't find it months ago. From what I see his work seems to be very good. He is quite far from me about a 100 mile drive. I will have to give him a call tomorrow. I do not have that. Thanks for the link, I will give that a good read as I should probably learn to at least tune these things myself in the future.

I've had my Triple Webers on my 280z for about a year now, been running the car since on a baseline tune. I have an L28 N42 Block with a rebuilt E88 head from a 260z I believe. Should be stock internals aside from a slightly thinner head gasket. The car drives pretty good, however I have to ease into the throttle at lower rpms before I can fully mash it otherwise the webers bog and backfire. The car smells like it's running pretty rich too. I am wondering if there is anyone recommended in the LA County area that knows how to tune these carbs close to perfection. I live more up north of LA (Santa Clarita to be exact) Closer the better! I am also wondering how much I should expect labor cost to be for someone to tune the car.

Thought I would leave the solution to my problem down. The timing was the issue. I should've caught it the moment I saw the RPMS raise up after the install and the fact that the timing wouldn't allow me to adjust lower than 18 degrees advance. The oil pump spindle is supposedly suppose to be installed at an 11:25 o clock position, however I removed mine and installed it one tooth over so I installed it at about a 12 o clock position. The rotor in the distributor lined up a lot better with spark plug 1 on the dizzy and I was finally able to adjust the timing to 0. I went ahead and set timing to 10 degrees advanced. On my drive home, the noise I've been hearing is completely gone now throughout the entire rev range and all gears. My car did lose power thought haha, but just happy I can finally drive her without having to worry. Gonna have to find someone who can tune webers soon, I got addicted to that power increase haha. Thanks everyone for the help!

I have a tool that you use for finding tdc compression that you stick into cylinder 1. But I also took off my valve cover and checked the lobes and timing marks and checked timing marks on my pulley. Also used the the oil pump spindle at the top at one point to make sure that was tdc

Yes, I rechecked it twice, motor at tdc and the spindle facing the 11:25 o clock direction from the top. My timing is about 17 or 18 degrees advanced as that's where my webers tuning likes it. To everyone I know who heard the noise in person does not sound like detonation to them

Update, washer was facing the wrong way, swapped it and still making noise, tried the oem washer and bolt too and still making noise. The noise can't be heard in neutral. I can hear the noise the most in 3rd gear but I can hear it in all gears. Can't replicate noise with the car in the air for some reason. I should add since I realized I never mentioned it, when I went to start my car after the new oil pump, the car struggled to start and it made a really loud bang. It did this 3 times trying to start the car which to my knowledge I think the starter hit the flywheel or something. It was enough to make the entire car move. I inspected the flywheel through the starter area and can't see any damage.