lambs

Bad use of words on my part....should have said 'duration at 0.050" lift'.

My advice?....forget the 300HP engine, it will be a pig to drive on anything but a race track. If you want HP, build a turbo engine, then you can dial it up as and when required. If you want to still go NA, then build a strong 250-260HP engine and keep a good torque curve.....a 3.1L will do that easily. Some judicial porting (DON'T open up the ports within an inch of their lives) and the thing will breath better with triples. Go EFI if you can. The car will have bags of torque and be a helluva lot more fun to drive. Money saved can be spent on handling improvements. Just my 2c worth.

They go together, no point putting a race cam in a low comp motor, etc, etc. I'm sceptical about the tighe figures.....the 0.050" lift figure is low for a race camshaft particularly realtive to the advertised duration. AFAIA Wade has the rights to the 'works' profiles and has had for many, many years.....that was the reason DatRally got into trouble with some of their advertising in the early days and were forced to change their descriptions (in fact all datrally cams were Wade grinds).

Roughly the equivalent of a 76 Wade cam (have to check the specs on the lift tho), which is a race cam. I know people that have used these in road cars, but not daily drivers. 74 is about the max I'd go for a daily driver. To give you some idea I checked with the 2 common cam suppliers in Melbourne: Wade: 76 regrind on your cam is $140+GST. To regrind the rockers (mandatory AFAIC with a new cam is $11+GST each). Clive cams: 76 regrind on your cam is $120+GST, but he can't do rockers. Interestingly Clive said he can do a billet for about $230, which is a lot less than it used to be (last time i had one done it was $350). Valve springs: I've used Crow springs without problems for years and they were around $100 for an L6 set. Lash pads: since Datrally bit the dust I haven't sourced any pads, but these used to be about $15 each (that said, Datrally were never cheap...... ). I've got a couple of other people I can try for these, and even know someone that can make them from scratch, if necessary.

From the OP I took it that was the problem.

It is one piece from the factory, but the aftermarket suppliers probably only make pieces to repair the common problem areas. I'd suggest talking to one of the Z specialists about what is available to repair your problem areas - it might have to be custom made.

You'll have to cut out all the rusted sheet and replace with new before welding in any replacement floors. From memory, 2+2 floor pans are quite different to 2-seater's, and not just in terms of length. They could probably be made to fit, but with all the mucking around and modification they'd need you'd probably be better getting new in the first place.

The old 'rule of thumb' was a max CR of 10:1 running 'super' leaded or premium unleaded.....about 95 octane in each case. You could go a little higher than that using 98 octane, but you need to keep a reasonable safety margin. A car with a CR of 11-12:1 will be a pig to drive around town, as you are talking race car tuning here. Keep in mind that CR is not the only consideraton - head/intake design also plays a big factor, and the design of L-series engines is _old_ by modern standards - especially the head. Modern cars have very highly developed heads, not to mention advanced digital engine management systems. This means that manufacturers can push CR higher and increase engine efficiency. Also a lot of these engines - even NA - have knock sensors which gives increased protection for the engine from detonation problems with low grade fuels. As for achieving 8500rpm - don't even think about for a street car. Even race car cranks won't last long at that level. Even if you could achieve it reliably, an L6 that developed power at that rpm level will certainly have sacrificed much at lower rpm, and torque will suffer enormously. For a race car with a close ratio gearbox that's probably fine, but for a road car - esp a daily driver - you want to go the other way. That is boost the spread of torque, while increasing top-end power, but without increasing peak power rpm too far. One thing I have seen time and again with L6 stroker engines - they don't like to rev, BUT they do produce good torque down low and that is what makes them so 'streetable'.

My car had the crappiest paint job, but I had no problem beating the 'pretty' cars on the track.....

Nothing from Steve Newing comes cheap. It's been a long time since I checked, but bare TB's were around the $500 mark each. Injectors are about $100 each (new), manifold ?? (redline made one, but crap quality). Then there's velocity stacks or air cleaners, TPS, ECU. All-in-all it gets expensive.......

I'm really mystified as to why people 'have to have' the P90 head. It's the L28ET head and has the biggest combustion chamber of all the L6 heads. That means to get any decent performance out of it on an NA engine (ie increase CR) you have to do one or a combination of: 1. Shave a lot off it - not a good idea on any L-series head 2. Use custom pistons 3. Weld up the combustion chamber (expensive, and a lot of work) 4. Play around with piston deck heights Now some say that the P90 has the best flow in stock form. Well that might be true, but porting is mandatory to improve flow on any L6 head, and I can guarantee that any L6 head can be made to flow as well as a ported P90 head (IOW any L6 head can be ported to achieve the same result), given the same valve size configuration. The advantage of the R30 type E88 head is that it gives a bolt-on CR increase on any L28, not to mention the fact they are much more plentiful than the P90 and cheaper.

In that case you'll need to stick to something fairly mild in terms of camshafts. One of the other reasons for suggesting 240Z Hitachi's (which are in a whole different ball park to stock 260Z carbs) is that they are pretty reliable and reasonably cheap to work on. Using those allows you to go a bit 'wilder' in terms of camshafts and gets the car performing better a bit quicker while allowing you to save up for the better EFI parts (aftermarket ECU, multi TB's etc).

I've used both the Crow mild cams and acheived close to 120 rwkw on an engine that was pretty 'mild', but with a much better injection system than the 280ZX (throttle bodies + Motec). Problem with the 280ZX system is that it's pretty restrictive - small manifold runners and TB. Also it's not very adjustable for anything other than a mild cam. To be honest I wouldn't waste the money. There have been many quite quick cars that have just used 240Z Hitachi's with the right needles. 110+ rwkw is quite acheivable. The degree figures I'm quoting are using the Wade method - 74 is the total duration divided by 4.....so 74 actually is 296 duration.

Fairly small from memory, 50-55mm maybe. L24E is the same. Think I've still got a manifold in the shed with TB. If I get the chance I'll check.

I've had quite a few done over the years. Mostly Crow and Wade re-grinds, but also one billet for a race engine. Probably the most common grinds are: 72 deg - mild street performance 74 deg - semi-race/street performance cam 76 deg - full race 76 deg, high lift - full race Regrinds are cheap, in themselves at around $100 (probably more now), but then you've got to factor in re-facing the rockers + the cost of lash pads. What you go for in terms of grind depends on your performance aims, the car use + what other components you are using (intake, exhaust)

I don't quite understand the need to go to such expensive brackets as the R30 type. Just get R31 rear calipers, discs and the mounting brackets as they are reasonably common and cheap. I run these on my 260Z and it's a relatively simple conversion, although you need access to some machining equipment - but none of these conversions are 'bolt on'. For those in Vic I can put you onto someone that is very much an expert in conversions of this type. He's done radial mount caliper conversions for Z's, plus Z32/R32, etc.

2+2 hatch is different to 2-seater version....won't fit.

As far as I'm aware only JDM 240Z, etc were called 'FairLady'. In place of the '240Z' badges on the guards were 'Fairlady' badges and on the hatch I think. Might still be available through Nissan, but you'd need a VIN to place an order, assuming they are available at all Another possiblity is the Yahoo Japan auctions and I just did a quick check, have a look at this: http://page13.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/r19157936 7000 Yen is about $80, but you could easily double that with fees and shipping costs, etc. If you want more info I can give you a contact to discuss making a purchase that way (normally only Jap residents can buy, but there are ways around that problem).

I think that, regardless of the numbers, the 240Z will always be regarded as 'more collectable' than the 260Z because it was 'the first'. In particular the cars built before about mid '71 had a lot of unique features. OTOH, the 260Z had better ergonomics and an arguably improved chassis for track work (although somewhat at the expense of weight).