Jeff G 78

$224 sounds like a lot for an auto parts store damper. I would suggest finding a good used one for the weekend and then have one rebuilt by Dale Mfg. For $110, you won't have to worry again (from what I hear). I have no first hand knowledge of Dale dampers, but they are very highly recommended by Tony D. He has been using them forever with zero failures and I trust Tony's endorsement.

So what was the root cause? Did the clearances change causing the heat and wear or was it a rocker arm problem?

Nice looking 260 Mike!

Like Steve said, we need way more info. The common mistake is to have the distributor 180° off, but it could be a lot of different things. Have you built a Z motor before> Did you start with a new chain and gears? Give us the build details and we'll help you.

Voted. Nice Z.

Apparently, it doesn't need to be there...

I buy the hangers at Autozone and they are similar to OE. They come with a very strong and thick rubber strap and a hook that goes under a U Bolt.

I have been using the Schneider springs with my Web Racing cam with no issues. I don't know about Delta, but Web says not to use synthetic oil with their cams. I run only Valvoline VR1 40 weight.

Adjustable TC rods are nothing new. They can be modified stock arms as shown or aftermarket TC rods like those sold by Techno Toy Tuning or other companies. https://technotoytuning.com/nissan/240z/tension-control-rods-datsun-240z-260z-280z

OMG Guy, this is terrible! I'm so sorry to hear that your Safari Gold car is down. The only thing I can think of is if there was a blockage in one of the oil galleys that occurred at the machine shop or shortly after startup. If a piece of flash got lodged in an oil passage, it could create the high pressure and starve the bearings. Hopefully, the damage is limited and has not ruined everything in the engine. Have you drained the pan to see how much metal is in the oil? Please let us know what happened.

I only welded my flanges to the header collector and to the flex. That allowed me to still rotate the outlet pipe in the flex. There was no welding on the car.

I agree with mjr45. I installed a flange and a flex pipe from Summit Racing. It makes installation much easier and should reduce the stress on the manifold studs.

Here are a few of my team's ChumpCar pics from Nelson Ledges two weeks ago.

That's cool.

Probably not. I'm so far behind on house projects after my race car build, that I need to stick around and catch up. She's no pristine 240Z, but the ChumpCar draws a lot of attention.

If you want a skanky old race car, call me.

Yeah, no rear window. We can't run glass and we ran out of time to find Lexan at a reasonable cost that fit. Since the S30 aero is so bad to start with, it probably didn't really hurt us that bad. We'll have Lexan in by the next race. As for the aero, this is ChumpCar. Plywood and lawn edging is very common.

The tires were new RT615K. They had only 11 hours of track time on them. We ran the old RT615 tires on the same car and same track and get 30+ hours out of them. Those are both left side, so the front/rear balance was good, they just blistered and failed. BTW, how do you guys like my plywood rear spoiler and garden edging front air dam?

I'm back home after the race weekend. Friday practice went fine. The car ran great for the few 30 minute sessions we ran in the morning, but when they broke for lunch, we rolled the car into the tech line for the race. We failed tech due to non-operating brake lights. WTF? The lights have always worked and they were working in the morning practice. After some diagnostics, we found that the brake switch plunger was stuck in. No matter what we tried, it wouldn't pop out. Luckily, my dad lives about an hour from Nelson Ledges and I have a huge stash of parts stored there. I knew I had a few peddle assemblies, so he met me 1/2 way and gave me the switch I needed. We got through tech fine, but we didn't get to run the car as long or hard as we wanted. 8am Saturday and the green flag flew for the 14 hour endurance race. The car ran great for the first 40 minutes or so and then our old problems came back. The car started missing and running like hell at high RPM. It continued to get worse as we came up with a plan to fix the car. We brought the driver in and we cracked open the box with the carbs we borrowed. With the car smoking hot, we pulled the stock airbox, choke cables, hoses and carbs off the manifolds and installed the borrowed set. Of course, they weren't tuned for our car, so I also had to tune and sync them before we could leave pit lane. They were way off when we first fired it up, so I reset everything to base and started from scratch. The front and rear had to be quite a bit different to balance, but I got it tuned. From the time the car came to a stop until the car left pit lane only 35 minutes had passed. It took about 31 minutes to do the R&R and then I tuned a set of SU's in less than 4 minutes! The driver went out and within 5 laps reported that the car was once again stumbling badly. @$#(& We brought him back in and swapped the coil just in case it was getting hot and causing the problem. Nope, same issue. We then brought him in and put Vice Grips on the fuel return line which had worked in the past. Unfortunately, this time it didn't work. We were running out of ideas, but the one thing we suspected was vapor lock due to heat coming through the steel fuel rail. I told the driver to stay out while we did some prep work. We cut some fuel hose and added a T fitting to eliminate the rail and go straight from the supply line to the carbs with no return. When we were ready, we called him in and within about 2 minutes, had the new fuel supply on and tight. He went out and after 5 laps reported that it was running great. We had heard that line before, so we sat and waited for the bad news. It never came! We FINALLY fixed the car and it was running really fast. We had dropped to nearly 30th place in the standings with 9.5 hours left in the race. From that point on, the engine ran flawlessly and we were fast. We clawed our way up to 10th place with 3 hours to go. Just when we thought we were in cruise control, or driver called on the radio that he had spun and had a vibration. He thought he might have mud in the wheels causing the vibration so he was coming in. When he got to our pit stall, we found that it wasn't mud, but massive tire blistering on both left side tires. We did a tire swap and sent him back out in 11th place, 6 laps down to 10th. He once again started turning fast laps and made up the time getting us close to the top 10 with 2 hours to go. I got in to finish the race and by the time the checkers flew at 10pm, we had finished in 9th place! It was a huge victory for us considering the issue we had early in the race. Thanks to all who help out! Here are a few pics.

Will do. Thanks Blue.

Yep Blue, I was going the right way with the tabs. I tried going both ways and nothing seemed to help. Right now though, the carbs appear to be working okay dynamically even though statically they show low.

Thanks Jim! I did the dynamic level test on the rear carb only so far and it appears to be fine. The level stays pretty close to the proper level with the floats adjusted to the FSM float-to-lid measurement. The fuel pressure stays at 7 psi on my crappy little gauge. I think I'll be okay at least until I get to the track and put it under a load.

Makes sense Jim. While tuning the carbs, when I crack the pistons, both carbs bog indicating a lean condition. Do I open the mix knobs a bit to adjust that? I was watching some MG tuning videos and on real SU's, they have another screw on the side which is how he said to adjust the rich/lean when the pistons are raised slightly. EDIT: After rewatching the video, I see that MG SU's don't have the knob on the bottom, so I guess the mix knob the right place to adjust for rich/lean, right?

Yep. I checked.

Great ideas Jim. I will add a T to the bowl-to-nozzle hose and check the dynamic level as well as try the Q-Tip test. My front and rear float heights are different because it's a '72, but I can still tell what they are doing. The tops of the floats *should* be at the FSM specified heights of 16mm and 12mm from the lid while running, right? I do have bowl drains, but I can't think of a good way to add a fitting without leaking. It's a small metric threaded bolt in the drain so other than drilling the center bore of a stud, I can't think of another good way. That might be tricky to get right in my drill press. T-ing the supply line will work as a quick test. If I am still 5mm low and I can't fix the condition, should I try to compensate by giving the mixture knobs an extra few turns out, or will that just cause other issues?