kmack

I had my '73 L24 engine dynoed last July. Motor has 200k+ miles, bad valve seals and worn rings. Burns about a quart of oil every 1500 miles (more if out on the track, a lot more!). Here is a copy of the Dyno Chart . The chart is at the bottom of the page. 127 hp w/ 127 ft-lbs of torque, at the wheels! And it was running rich. Not bad I say. '73 L24 block, E88 head, stock points, cam, '71 SU's, 6-2 header, 2-1/4" exhaust. btw - if anybody is interested, this motor is for sale. $100 obo.

I have a set of 6-spokes that I polished up similar to DastunZGuy's set. The "star" pattern is highly polished w/ the inlays painted Nissan Silver (touch-up paint), and the outer rim is somewhat duller polished (not as mirror-like as the star). It still keeps the overall look of the wheel bright, w/o being too overly chrome looking. But still shows some distinction between the different areas of the wheel. I don't have a close up of the wheels, but here is a picture of them on the car in good light.

I definitely can't compete with that one. I don't even want to think about it any more! :sick: :sick: If I wanted out of a parade, I just locked my knees at attention and started to pass out from the heat. Worked every time. I will admit that marching competitions were an absolute blast! Those were usually all day long and over the course of two days. Awesome stuff to watch.

The irony of it all.....I replaced my battery area, portion of the firewall, and the upper unibody and lower frame rail (from the strut tower to the fire wall) from a '76! :cross-eye I'll have to try and find the old section I removed from my car and send you a picture of it. You'd be so proud! It's in my back yard in the small junk pile folded up flat, the metal was that thin!

I was waiting to see how long it'd take you to find my comment. Btw, I had to patch that area of the hatch sill on my car, right side to be exact. Actually it was the structure of the car underneath the hatch sill plate that rusted out. A little tough to do, but not impossible. And the area under the battery on my car was "perforated" but not completely gone. Although it was bad enough that the frame rail directly under the battery had cracked! :surprised

Since EScanlon threw my name out there, I'll post my opinion of parades. I've had enough of parades!:cross-eye Don't get me wrong, I don't hate them. There are lots of people that make a living off parades. Here in San Antonio there is a company (just down the street from my office) that does nothing but build parade floats all year long. So parades are good in some respects. But having been a member of a marching band from Junior High to High School, I personally have had enough of them. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc. I've done enough marching in the parades to have my fill. The area of South Texas known as the Rio Grande Valley (as far south as you can go in Texas, or the US for that matter) has to have the worst parade I have ever been a part of. The Charro Days Parade celebrates is the annual fiesta celebrating Brownsville´s bi-national heritage. This parade is almost 8 miles in length and takes over 5 hours to complete! It takes place at the end of February/beginning of March just as the Texas sun is warming up. As a member of the marching band, we start-stop-stand, repeat as the day goes on. Most times we would barely finish the drum cadence before we had to stop again. All because some dance troop only went 50' before they started their routine again. It basically sucked. So there is my reason for not ever wanting to see a parade again, TV or in person. It brings up too many bad memories. :disappoin

I hate NASCAR because they always go in the same direction...LEFT! Part of the reason I like watching WRC so much is not only are they going both left and right, they are doing it sideways at the same time!

Kind of like that commercial awhile back with Mario Andretti as a Student Driving Instructor: (Mario) "Turn left..." "Turn left..." "Turn left..." (Student Driver) "When are we going to turn right?" (Mario) "Why would you want to do that?"

They're legal as long as you don't get caught! Basically they are fine (actually better) for use on the street. But because there are fees and paperwork for getting a product approved by DOT for use on public streets, many aftermarket companies don't go through the process. Costs are too high to make a decent profit. Then to put all the greedy lawyers and free-loaders at bay, they have to put "For Off-Road Use Only" on the product so they don't get sued. Ahhh, Capitalism at it's best...:tapemouth

Same here...."Off-road use only." And I do use them for "off-road use," they see a track day periodically. But I took the tags off, so it doesn't say that anymore! :classic: My personal view is they are better than the stock rubber lines, and give better performance and brake feel. I'll argue it in court if I have to, but how many times have you ever seen an Officer (or other Gov't official) look that closely at your brakes?

I have the "Earl's" lines from MSA also. Great deal, easy installation, and everything has been great since. I don't know how easy it is to change out struts once the lines are installed as I changed out my struts and springs when I put the lines on.

I tried to find the article on their website....no dice. COuldn't find anything about it. Am I missing something?

I'll agree here again, Rick. My wife loves that show. I could care less. To me they're all a bunch of NYC puss...:tapemouth I mean wussies! I'll be glad when that show ends this year. And my wife wonders why I disappear into the garage during prime-time veiwing hours!

Thanks zrush. I'll to see about tracking down a set of those. Those would look great on my engine.

If the body has a lot of rust, you're better off parting it out. Pull all the usable stuff off and get rid of the rest. Only St. Stephen would buy a rust bucket! :cheeky: (Sorry) Not only will the individual parts store easier, you'll mostly get rid of the pieces faster by parting, than if you tried to sell the car as a whole. Ebay works nice for supplementing your car fund!

Carl, It's all paint. The air cleaner is the exact same paint as on the car. The block and valve cover are actually 1200* high-heat paint. I bought 3 different brands from 3 autoparts stores to see which one matched best. The brand from AutoZone (Dura-something) Universal Red matched near perfectly! It's about $4 a can, but has held up nicely to the heat of the engine. They have a 600* version of the paint, but I didn't want to take any chances with it peeling off. I used the same paint, but in black, on the headers. Word of advice: make sure you get your pieces very clean of dirt and what-not before you paint. I have a few spots on the headers that I could not get to and those areas have started to peel up from the heat. Also, this type of paint stays somewhat soft until heat is applied. So be careful. I had to redo the valve cover due to some of my carelessness in handling it. Once the paint has been heated (dried), it is rock hard. I've had the valve cover off 3 times so far and still no scratches from my sockets.

Thanks, Victor. It still needs a few more pieces to be color accented like the coil, engine bay light, and I'd love to find a set of red plug wires for it also. It's all just the little things now. What you can't see is that the block is the same color as the valve cover along with the pulleys. The timing cover was left aluminum to match the head. I've had one comment about that I should have left the engine bay red instead of painting it black, but I felt that would be too much red for the car under the hood. The black sets off the engine nicely, makes it stand out more.

Mine is the stock color... the same stock 905 Red color as my car! :classic: My engine Originally it was orange, but orange doesn't look good on a red car. The first blue ones were on the 280's with FI. I like my "stock" color better! :cheeky:

Actually, I have a thing for the Pit Boss, the one with the British accent, (something) Thomason, I can't remember her first name. But yes, Nikki Cox is pretty hot.

Trust me, you don't want to know about her. Just a stupid, arrogant, rich snob that has nothing better to do with her life.

Hey Rick, No offense meant, it's just the Wiggles aren't my cup-o-tea. Wouldn't have been even when I was a kid. They just don't seem to have much valuable content for children other than memorizing kid songs. (Just a parent's point of view) My all-time favorite kids show would have to be any of the old Warner Brothers cartoons, especially the roadrunner ones. As for some of them sit-coms on the tele today, I don't watch them. The only thing I like about Malcom in the Middle is the theme song. I sing that at work just to annoy people. It's also the ring on my cell phone! Other than movies, there are only four shows I watch on TV on a regular basis: WRC Rally coverage (Speed Channel) Monster Garage (Discovery Channel) American Chopper (Discovery Channel) Las Vegas (NBC) The latter being one that my wife has recently gotten me into. It's a 1 hour drama series that gets into the workings of a Hotel/Casino in Vegas but w/ a little bit of humor thrown into the mix. It's a good relief from all the darn doctor and lawyer shows. I'd love for all the sitcoms to go away. Most of the actors/actresses nowadays are over-paid cry-babies that think their backwards political views are more important than the freedoms most Americans hold dear. They think their $^!# doesn't stink. (Sorry that's a soap-box I don't want to step up to right now) The Networks need to start stressing more shows that have meaning or teach something. TLC and the History Channel are good ones that I think need to be included with public channels, not just as part of a cable package. Lots of good, informative and historically valuable programs. Which is sorely needed in this country. So yes, I agree with you that the sitcoms and all the reality shows need to be thrown in the trash. Especially that asinine Paris Hilton show which does nothing but make fun of good, honest, hard-working people and only make Paris look like a stupid bitch!:tapemouth

Oh and thanks for the "Wiggles" guys.... :tapemouth My daughter loves them and I can't stand them. Not that the "Teletubbies" are much better.... :stupid: :stupid:

Based on the information provided in the link you gave: The lower angle of positive caster on the left is the reason it pulls to the left slightly. Understandable now. I can (somewhat) adjust the angle of caster on the left by placing washers in front of the bushing, thereby pushing the tension rod out towards the front of the car. But this will again affect my toe-in, right? I just hate to think that if I make an adjustment again, then I'd have to go through the alignment process all over. (It's only the fourth time, due to other changes I've made) I don't think the bushing on the tension rod is too tight. I torgued both of them the same under load. But there is always room for error. So with 2 different caster settings, will I need to worry about any adverse handling or tire wear? I'm going to be looking for a new set of tires for Autocross and I want to make sure they don't wear faster than neccesary

I'll revive this old thread due to some questions I have regarding these issues: I just got the alignment checked on my 240 today. Had them set the camber to my specs (camber bushings installed) and set the toe-in to factory specs. Question has to deal with the measured caster. Here's what I got from the machine: ___________"L" "R" Camber: -.28* -.33* Caster: 1.08* 2.15* Toe-in is factory spec and I don't remember what the reading was. (They pulled the car off the machine before I could get them to print it out.) Above measurements are in degrees. Does anybody know how these caster measurements will affect the car's handling? Are they good or bad? I'm sure the higher measurment on the right is due to the sheetmetal work I had to do under the battery area during restoration. I can work around this if it is neccesary to change these numbers. Basically, I want to know if 1* of caster is better than 2* or vice-versa. The car is driven on the street rather irregularly and used to Autocross. I have MSA's Performance springs installed (blue in color). On a side note regarding slotting the strut towers for additional camber adjustment: Does anybody know at what measurement of movement of the strut equals what degree of camber change? Put another way, does 1/4"= 1* of camber change? Or something similar to that.

Home Depot or Lowes has the sticky-backed foam. Comes in varying thicknesses on a roll. Look in the area near the door sill plates. It is used for sealing around the doors, camper shells, etc.