jmortensen

Tomohawk, I'm all about the "your rights end where my nose begins" thing, but if you really think that putting a sticker on your car should be considered probable cause for the cops to pull you over and inspect your car then our ideas of "freedom" and "where my nose begins" have some pretty serious differences. Ed is right, if they're breaking a law, deal with them as such. If they aren't, leave them alone. Anything else is not freedom. Putting stickers on your car very well might insinuate that you have a race car, but it just as easily may insinuate that you just really like stickers. It shouldn't be an offense worthy of pulling someone over until the law is broken. Ed is wrong about the bikes though. Everyone I knew in CA who had a Harley had been hassled about loud pipes at least once.

Sounds like a good revenue generator to me. Stickers are probable cause to pull you over and search your vehicle??? What kind of crap is that? There is no definition of stickers either, could be anything from a giant Japanese word that probably translates to dumbass across the hood of your Civic, or it could be a political bumper sticker or anything. So the cop is a democrat and you're a republican with a bumper sticker and now he has technical probable cause to stop you and inspect under the hood? Sounds like too much police power to me. Oh right, it won't be abused will it? Cops would never pay undue attention to a Vanagon covered with daisies and Grateful Dead bears and pot leaves... :? There are already laws for loud exhaust and loud stereos. It's called disturbing the peace, and I wish officers would enforce those laws more vigorously to be perfectly honest. There are also rules about rearward vision. Think of all the delivery vans that don't have rear windows at all. The law in CA anyway states that if you don't have a window in the back you have to have both side mirrors present. If you've got both side mirrors present, the cops should leave you the hell alone regardless of how big your wing is. This is America damn it, and if I want to be really stupid I should have the right to do so without government interference. Drifting and street racing are already illegal, even where there are no laws geared at drifting and street racing. They are covered by the same law that covers wandering all over the road while on your cell phone; it's called reckless driving. Still we feel a need to pass more laws to fight crimes that can already be fought with the existing laws. There is no need to trample civil liberties to jackasses from drifting and street racing, but those who seek to protect us from ourselves would like nothing more.

Here is a link to the tool that Lance suggested: http://www.eastwood.com/jump.jsp?itemID=10966&itemType=PRODUCT&path=1%2C2%2C372%2C373%2C376&KickerID=40&KICKER Just put the wand in at either end and spray your rust proofer in there. Could even drill a hole in the middle to make sure you get good coverage...

The rears are longer because the stud also has to go through the brake drum and the hub. On the front the rotor bolts to the other side of the hub, so the studs can be shorter. You could buy the 20mm longer studs or the ARP studs, figure out how long they need to be and cut them down if you have to.

More stuff up for sale: http://motors.search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZsellszparts

3/8" is about 9mm longer.

I particularly liked the Rotary Spitfire they did some years back. Nothing like putting a light, powerful motor into a light agile chassis... wonder what side of the V8 vs L6 argument they'd be on...

I happened to have a stock stud and a RX7 stud handy today. The stock stud has about 15/16" or 24mm of thread showing as installed in the hub. The RX7 stud was 1 3/4" or about 45mm showing. So I was a little off before. The RX7 is more like 13/16" or 21mm longer.

Fair??? Why is fair even an issue here? Fair to who? Both engines fit in a Z, one puts out 325whp and gets ~24 mpg, the other puts out 115whp and gets ~24 mpg. I'm sure if I owned the LS1 I'd think it was plenty fair.

Just a little note on mpg since that is something we can compare in real terms. LS1/T56 combos are putting down mid to high 20's as far as mpg. That .5:1 6th gear certainly plays a role, but mpg of V8/6 speed is comparable or better than a L24/4 speed.

Also you can drill a hole in the backing plate and feed the studs through and not have to pull the stubs.

2nd gen RX7 studs have the same knurl diameter but are 12 x 1.5mm. The factory stud is probably ~15mm longer than the stock stud, so that might work. If you need a really long stud ARP makes a stud for the RX7, also fits a Camaro. The ARP part number is ARP-100-7708, and the threaded portion is 2.5 inches or ~62mm. If you have Nissan wheels with the Nissan lugs, Toyota makes a lug nut that works and has the 12 x 1.5 thread pitch. I got some off of a 4 Runner.

We put a T in there to connect all the hoses up to the filler. It was a steel T, so he cut it short. Good point about the static electricity, I'm just passing on what we did on his, but apparently we were wrong in that one aspect.

Your 73 might have the electric pump, but that should be the only difference.

My bro-in-law just got a Z that had been sitting for about 10 years. We removed all the 35 year old hoses and replaced them, but we T'd them all together then plugged them into the filler neck hole and completely removed the vent tank. It cost some $$$ for fittings, I want to say about $60, but was well worth it. The one thing he made sure of is that the steel T that went into the filler neck was cut really short. It's pretty far down in there, but you can only imagine what would happen if you got a spark between the gas pump nozzle and the fitting... Pulling the tank is pretty easy. You have the fuel sender, 2 wires. The filler nozzle, one clamp. Then you loosen the two straps and disconnect all the other fuel lines as it comes down. It's a 30 minute job to get it out.

Something was wrong with your L24. Stock L24 should do 7000 rpm no problem at all IME.

Once again, I'm not twisting your words, or Dave's, I'm trying to compare REAL WORLD situations. If you guys insist on comparing a mythical pushrod V8 to a mythical OHC V8 or a theoretical OHC 6 to a theoretical OHV 6 fine. The benefit of that discussion will be just as theoretical. As I have said multiple times now, I voted for the OHC in the poll because I believe it to be a superior design. I haven't seen anyone who disagrees with you or Dave or anyone else about that. Maybe whoever voted for the OHV engine will speak up. Until then you guys are preaching to the choir, but in the most useless way (comparing theoretical engines to one another). I'm just trying to dispell the myths about the OHV engines in Z's. The easiest way to do that is to compare real evidence. As Lance said "This debate will go on forever unless you define the question to a specific point...." It really seems like nobody on the OHC side of the argument is willing to do that. I'll bow out again until somebody wants to talk in terms of reality. Right now you might as well be arguing whether chocolate or vanilla ice cream is better.

What engine are you talking about Jason? The L series, or an S2000? Because an L28 series put out something like 135 hp out of 2.8 liters in the last version. That's 48 hp/liter. Let's check my truck again as a comparison. 285 hp / 5.3 liters = 53.77 hp/liter. There are many more V8s out there with more power per liter than my truck, so please don't get hung up on new V8 vs old L6. Jason you could be talking about the theoretical pushrod L6 vs the real OHC L6 like Dave was earlier, but I really don't see why this efficiency argument stands up any better than the reality argument comparing the OHC to OHV liter per liter. As far as weight are you talking weight per liter or weight per hp or weight per cylinder or what? I'm much more interested in weight per hp, and the V8 whips on the L6 in that regard. The old iron block 350 with aluminum heads and water pump weighs 40 lbs more than an L28. Just 40 lbs, and the weight will be set back further in the chassis if you use the JTR mounting position. The new all aluminum V8 is supposed to be lighter than the L28. I guess the rotary really wins this weight battle though. Point is, L28 is a HEAVY engine. V is the way to go for weight because the block is half as long, and that's why you see most car manufacturers going to the V setup.

Um... you just contradicted yourself. Pushrod motor is an inexpensive way to go fast, but that doesn't make it better... What's not better about going fast inexpensively?

That's a good point Craig. I probably should have mentioned that the one time I had the vapor lock it was 105º and I normally didn't run in those kinds of temps.

I don't have any pictures anymore sorry, been running Mikunis for years now. I had the rubber line zip tied to the radiator core support and had it zip tied to some wiring on the distributor side of the engine. I can't remember how I had it split, I think I just got a little T from the auto parts store and hooked it up. It was easy, that much I do remember. One more thing, you need to plug the return line if you dead-head the fuel system. Otherwise fuel will come from the tank and spill out the front under hard braking.

The one time my 70 vapor locked I was at the Streets of Willow and it sounded boggy at the end of the straightaway in top of third shifting to 4th. It got to the point where I didn't even shift into 4th the last time around. The weird thing was this was the only place on the track that it did anything unusual. All of the slower tighter corners were fine. Then when I came into the pits I popped the hood and it idled like crap for a couple minutes then died. Really vapor locked. Left the hood open for a while and it would start up just fine, run just great until towards the end of the next session where it would start bogging at the end of the straight again. I felt the fuel rail and it was HOT. I felt the mechanical pump and it too was HOT. I decided to remove those things from the system, and I ran a rubber hose from the filter across the rad support back to the SU's and installed an electric pump. My theory is that even if you wrap the fuel line with some heat shielding you haven't disconnected it from the head, which is damn hot. So the heat just travels up the mounting tabs right under the heat shield. Anyway, I never had a problem with vapor lock again. I just dead-headed the fuel system, no return line. Since it worked great with no return, I can surmise that the fuel wasn't boiling in the float bowls, but was boiling as it went through the mechanical pump and fuel rail.

That's a tiny cam. .460/260 is pretty small. My .490/280 is a medium cam IMO. I don't know what kind of drugs they're smoking when they say that .450 cam is good for 12:1 compression, it seems like it should do fine with stock compression. It looks to me like the springs and retainers have to go together. With that amount of lift you should be able to run stock springs.

Yeah, that's $4.57 each, which isn't too bad. At the bottom they say they'll exchange them if they're wrong too, which is nice. As they say at the bottom there, if you're doing a valve job or if a valve job has been done on those valves before it might change which pads you need. You might check other cam sources too. Isky makes Z cams, Erson makes cams, Sunbelt makes cams, so MSA and Schneider aren't the only ones out there. I have run regrinds myself by American Cams in SoCal. Lots of different sources and grinds. I seem to remember the Isky cams are ~$150, plus the $54.95 for the MSA lash pads (or check with Nissan Comp) and you should be able to get out of it for just over $200 including shipping.

No problem. With a .460 lift cam you technically shouldn't hit the valve stem seals. I'd replace them with the Ford seals anyway. According to the machinist who turned mine you want a little clearance there, at least .050" he said, because the valves can float and the rockers can bounce of the cam lobes and ruin the seals if there isn't clearance. The one thing you'll have to do is check the lash pad thickness and make sure that is correct. It's tedious, but not hard. Basically I just set the cam in the head and bolted everything down, then took 1 intake and 1 exhaust rocker, painted the rocker surface black with a Sharpie, and stuck them in. Then I rotated the engine a couple turns by hand and looked at the rocker pad. You want an equal amount of black on either end of the pad. If the cam lobe runs right off the end of the pad then you need to adjust the lash pad thickness. I don't remember what happened with my first cam, but with my second the lash pads were 180 and 190 IIRC. They were different for intake and exhaust. I had a couple different sizes at the time, so I was able to look at the difference from say a 140 to a 160, then estimate that I needed around 180 or 190. I guessed and got about 4 sizes (6 of each) then played some more until I got it right. Nissan Comp had them CHEAP. I want to say it was $3 each or $5 each or something like that.