Arne

Agreed. But as I said, for most of us - whose pure street cars will never see any track time - I believe the differences between the various heads are minimal.

My car still has a couple of these clear plastic grommets, although they are not in very good shape.

And to clarify, here in the US at least, there was no such thing as a "factory" mag wheel option for a 240Z. There were lots of dealer installed mags, but none were offered or approved by the factory, and every dealer had different choices, depending on what they could get the best buy on.

Just happened to have my new one sitting here, waiting for me to swap from auto to 4 speed in a couple days. Here are some pics.

I may get flamed for saying this, but it seems to me that for most of us - whose cars will not be involved in high level competitive events - all this fuss about which head is better is purely an academic exercise. The difference in performance on a mildly built engine for primarily street use between say, an E31 and a large chamber E88 for example is probably not significant. So for most of us, go with what ever head you've got, or whichever one is in the best condition. Now, if you are competing at a high level, there is more reason to be concerned. But even then, a 10 HP improvement due to a better head might be compensated for by more skillful driving or better brakes.

Better than the rear bumper on mine... Oh, wait. I don't have a rear bumper yet.Seriously, it looks like a great starting point. Good luck!

Yes, that's where it runs.

Actually, I do have an article started on my laptop, about the entire details of doing the automatic to 4 speed swap on a Series 1 240Z, since I couldn't find all the info I needed in one spot. I expect to complete the swap next week, and then I'll finish the article (assuming I get back to it) shortly after that.As for a wheel article, I guess I could do something like that too. I haven't sold custom wheels for a number of years now, since a mid-life career change. But I do still have a lot of knowledge of obsolete custom wheels from about '75 through '95. If it was made in those years, I've probably seen it, touched it, sold it, or some combination of the three. Pretty hard to put all that in an article, I wouldn't know where to start. So my knowledge is probably much better used in simply identifying wheels as questions come up.

Yeah, that's a good thought. As long as you don't grind into the water jacket, because it looks from the pictures as if Marty is planning to connect the water to the manifolds.

First, I believe that Superior no longer makes aftermarket wheels, so you won't be able to buy this style new, later. But those wheels are chrome-plated steel, and the weigh a ton! They are not in any way to be considered a performance wheel, 15" size not withstanding.

Marty, just as a point of information - do you know what brand header Jet Hot uses? I suspect that they don't make their own, but probably buy then unpainted from someone else and then the coat them. But back on topic. The headers (whatever brand they may be) were obviously designed and test-fit on an injected engine. Which probably makes sense considering that the round port heads were all injected. As for options - an obvious choice would be to intentionally dent the offending tubes to gain clearance. It's done all the time on many different applications. I would find that distasteful, myself, and would consider it to be my option of last resort. An equally obvious choice would be different brand headers. Again, that doesn't sound like a good choice to me. But another thought would be to try different intake manifolds. It looks like those are the early '70-71 manifolds to me. It is possible that the '72 manifolds, or maybe the '73-74 manifolds might have slightly different bottom contours, or maybe they have longer runners which might move the water chamber far enough away to clear the header.

Where abouts up here are you, Randy? You didn't fill in the Location field in your profile.

Yeah, that's one of the issues that I have - I know for a fact that none of the 4 taillights I have are good enough for Dave to reuse for the next set. That plus the fact that I still have LOTS of things to spend money on that are much more critical than LED lights.

I've tried Platinums in the past in other cars and been singularly unimpressed. They cost a lot more than normal plugs, with no noticeable benefit. In fact, in the old '81 323i, they were noticably inferior in performance to the stock Bosch Supers. I won't waste my cash on them again.

I recall reading road tests of the first cars, and people whined about the 'start at 20' thing. So I'm sure that was why they changed the first time. As for why they changed from starting at 0 to starting at 10? Who knows? But it probably has to do with the start at 10 being cheaper, somehow.

Note that the car with the header you like is right hand drive. There isn't enough room for this kind of header on a left hand drive car - the steering column is in the way.

To keep the height about right, you'd need to go with a quite narrow tire, 185/75-14. The ride difference between that and the 195/70-14 will be minimal.

We should all make a bid while it's cheap! I did mine (berglua). Up to $5.04 now.

Go to http://www.classicdatsun.com/ and look for their interior plastic kit. You can get all new plastic for US$375.

True in theory, but in the real world my many years experience in the auto service industry tell me that some gas charged dampers will definitely increase the ride height - I've seen it many times, including on my own cars. In general, the higher the gas pressure, the worse the 'jacked' effect. Single tube shocks (such as Bilsteins and the old KYB Gas-a-just) are the worst.So what we're hearing is that the Tokico HPs do seem to increase the ride height noticeably. I'd like to get input on other choices (as few as they be) regarding this. Do the KYB GR-2's do this as well? I'm assuming that the GR-2's - being a less performance-oriented shock - may have less gas, therefore less 'jack' effect.

Oh! I'm so jealous! I want to be at this point SOOOO bad! But it's probably 2 years off for me and my car, at a guess.

OK, so now I'm supposed to feel better? My transmission came free with the car, and I have two free clutches to choose from. I already identified that one of the free pressure plates does not match my bearing collar, I was hoping that would be the only issue.I'll cross my fingers for you as long as you do yours for me, too.

Don't tell me stories like that! I'm swapping a four speed into my car (replacing the automatic) next Tuesday. Don't want to hear no "do it five times" horror stories.

Yes. If you have a radiator shroud, you'll want to stay with a plastic 240Z fan due to the increased size of the 260/280Z fans. If you don't have a shroud, the bigger fans will fit fine as well. The 280ZX fans do not fit properly, though.

My car (#12746, 10/70) came with A. Don't know if that's the earliest type or not.