yoeddynz

yeah better than the old ladys who complain ' you and your noisy car' etc. She made us a coffee while we worked on it- not shit old lady coffee - watered down instant with loads of sugar. Nup, proper strong good quality plunger coffee. and then we sat down and listened to her chatting about all the old missions she would do in her cars. She has a small collection of model cars and proudly showed me them. Has a model 240. Fucking ace. She would be up for a car show but is pretty frail with the big 'c'

Cheers gus. Yep i joined the z club forum and they reckon it could be worth upwards of 30,000 if its a minta show car. Its not far off that. I think she spent 4k on paint job alone. Its done either 60k or 100k- i cant remember as speedo was in miles. BUt it is bloody tidy and engine sounded sweet considering it was running on 6 year old petrol.

I'll get more photos up next time I see it. Gonna take it for a run. ITs way out of my price range but she has no family...if I can woo her....

OK cool. whoops...a pun.

I'll copy and paste this up on z club then. cheers. Looking forwards to taking it for a spin. feels like quite a solid old beast.

This afternoon my cousin, Hannah and I spent getting an old 260z going. Owned for years by this 80+ year old lady who my cousin does gardening for. He had spotted it in the garage and asked her about it. She imported it from the UK after having owned a 240Z when they first came out which she had to sell. She loves it dearly but cant drive it anymore. Cool old lady, absolutely nuts about cars having owned in order a triumph roadster, MGA twincam, herald, xk120 and others. Had old motorbikes too, No family. She wants one last drive and then will sell it. The car is bloody amazing!!!! Its a 2 seater too- not the 2+2. Last ran in 2005.

We pumped up tyres and rolled it out today covered in dust. Gave it a wash, wow. Some fresh fuel in the carbs, jump leads and it started, cool. She had extractors fitted and boy does it sound simply glorious!. I drained out the old fuel and in with some fresh. No rust anywhere- minty fresh! Mint interior too. Man I love cars like this! I'll be going back to replace a split heater hose and fuel hose, replace brake fluid etc then will take it a spin.

I know the 260s are not as valued as 240's but what would this car be worth? I think (hope) its rego is on hold. She is still completely with it and knows it must be worth good money in this condition. I wont be able to afford it but at least I can help her find a good home/price for it. It'll be cool just driving it!

Some photos- I forgot to get a photo of the interior.

Tucked away...

What a bonnet!...

Hannah said she wants a car with a paint job as nice as this. And a car as nice as this. It was really nice to clean as it came up lovely and shiny.

cool- yeah i sort of get it. good with watts and volts but add resistance and my brain starts getting hot. I'll just get a resistor and put it in. if it blows it blows.

Nup dave- no skid marks yet sorry.

should i put the multi meter between pot and gauge and see what current its drawing because the pot does get slightly warm? Maybe it draws something like 10watts?

Yeah I reckon sleeperish is a word. Its definitely how I want the car.

Yeah the carb is big enough. Elford converted about 500 cars and they received good press about the performance.

Cheers zac for techno babble. What i did yesterday morning was buy a 0-500 ohm? pot from jaycar- all of $3.50 I wired it in series and so that turning it clock wise would make needle go up. Then I installed my temp probe on multi meter in side top hose. I started engine and when temp on meter read 40 i adjusted viva gauge to read 40. at 70 they were the same. At 90 it was ever so slightly out so I tweeked it as this is the important area. Now viva gauge was spot on I marked position on pot and will take it out, measure the resistance (was about turned about 3/4) and buy a resistor to suit.

Now I also know that fan switch doesn't work. I took it out, put it in a pot on stove and it switched on at about 96! Bugger. I had bought it second hand from local radiator place and he thought it was a 85 degree one. I'm actually not that sure what I should have the fan set to turn on at- I think 85-90 is about right on a rotary?

photos...

Adjustable resistor pot thingee..

Multi meter visible from seat..

The fan switch- is this a common looking style?..

Phew- that is expensive- well for one use. I'll pop down to jaycar and Penis smith and see what they have in stock.

cheers guys- yeah bloody happy and quite relieved- especially as its the first rotary engine I've rebuilt. Wasn't hard but just new things to learn and look for eh.

Good meeting ya too Billy- will stay in touch about that cert man.

A variable resistor- like something I just wire ine series and can turn a knob? That sounds good. Where? Jaycar?

Its a runner!!! I had given carb a check over, discovered float height was way off and wouldn't have closed needle valve properly! Re set that, after much searching for info on proper oil to run in dashpot damper and decided to go with 3 in 1 which is meant to be about the 20 weight required.

Re-installed carb which luckily is really easy. Checked fluid levels which were spot on. Went to start it and no fuel to the carb from regulator??!! I removed a bung I had put over the rising rate vent tube on top of my Malpassi reg, it hissed and fuel was delivered So that was part of the problem then. Turned key. nothing. choke out. Vrrrrommmmm

Here is the vid...

Pretty bloody happy. The exhaust sounds good- not too loud. Biggest issue is the temp gauge- I have ford escort sender installed and it reads too high on viva gauge, like 40 when cold and off the scale before fan even comes on (82). Prozac mentioned fitting some resistors in line to drop the reading. How many/what resistance?

And this being my first turbocharged petrol engine I have question on boost gauges.. my gauge reads vacuum at idle and then when I stab the pedal will go back up to 0? When should it show boost?

So list of things to do are;

Fit a filter.

Fit my rev counter subtly under dash,

Sort temp sender. Maybe install a decent after market gauge and sender?

Fit a lambda gauge.

Fit boost gauge.

Cert car and drive.

Very happy I am! Now back to housetruck work....

alex

Where did ya go for the wof?

Bummer about the setback but at least you'll get it sorted now and it'll be good for the future.

looks kinda similar to the new capri..

I think that looks a lot like an rx8 without the extra doors and an uglier front end!

As for the toyota.. Like has been mentioned by others it seems to be a big melting pot of many other cars that have come out recently.

Its great that they are trying but cars new cars these days seem too big and too 'aerodynamic'.

Those vents behind the front wheels- are they just there for show or do they indeed serve to spray mud and shit up sides of the doors?

I'll stick with spending money on old cars thank you:-)

Bloody useful link there Dave! (whoops...I swore. sorry) I have book marked it and will read in the morning with a strong coffee.

I opened up the carb tonight and its really clean inside with out the usual signs of gum deposits from old petrol. I think that having put a plug on the float chamber vent hole didn't help matters I also checked the float chamber valve with my expensive float chamber valve checking apparatus...

I'll try Basis then. Full rebuild kit is 47 squid in the UK. I'll see what our NZ tax adds on....

looking good ive walked past your place a couple time thought bout randomly stopping in to say hi and check the projects out in person.

If I'm out and about when you walk past and ya see me then sure, pop in and say hi Mind the smelly doggys otherwise.

Wow -everything is happening in blenheim all at once. Shit the farmers won't know what to do, pub bar might be 2 deep - and then there the air show this weekend as well. tis all happening!

I think I might have some- yeah I'll try it after checking carb out. Who does su parts in NZ?

Cheers man. Hey just been reading up on su hif carbs and there is a vent tube for float chamber.... which I had put a little cap on the seal it and stop shit getting in there I think this may be the problem and cause of erratic fuel delivery eh...

I'll try it again tomorrow hopefully. The other thing I might check for is a leaky float.

Ether? come again.. I think I have some but its reserved for landing/snatching my next lady. Hang on- I'm getting my gases mixed up...

Ha- not yet I'm afraid. I just updated thread. Carb problems...

But fucking glad it started first pop (for a second)

Ok- well it starts... sort of. In fact it started on first turn of the key after I had finished building the oil pressure up and turned ignition cut switch back on. But wouldn't run for more than 1 or 2 secs. With the choke pulled right out it ran for about 5 seconds and sounded good but then died. Then the SU carb would flood. Then it wouldn't let any fuel out through jet. then it would flood. Just to confirm it was fuel related I checked the ignition and all leads produced good enough sparks. I must buy new leads though, I'm using manky old ones, all I could find at the time. Next I checked the compression. My tester isn't a proper one for rotaries though which will give a reading for each face, its just a normal type which will show the best of three faces per rotor.

I was getting about 90+ psi which seems fine.

So the carb jet is blocked and or the float valve is acting the goat. Carb is now off and I'll have a look at some point tomorrow.

Anyone on here have experience with these HIF SUs- I think its the same as on metro turbos? Did we in NZ get them? And where can I get rebuild kits in NZ for Sus? What sort of problems should I be looking for inside the carb specific to SUs?

Im glad the engine started anyway! And its sounded nice and quiet ....from what I could tell. I hope I don't go out in the morning to find a big pool of oil/coolant/blood under car or something silly as right now I'm going to go to bed happy. I must say its strange to be starting a rotary without the usual stamp stamp on pedal and then start then blipping throttle for a bit till it warms up like with webber and nikki carbs I'm more used to. And its nice to have the engine back where it belongs- not in bits under the bench

And big cheers out to Dave (avenger tiger) for driving all the way over from Mapua to help me with engine placement duties - good man! And thanks to Hannah for awesome pizza at lunchtime.

Engine is all built now. Hannah helped me with it and we built it yesterday afternoon- I bought some Hylomar universal blue jointing compound for the plate to housing faces as it doesn't set hard and allowed us to take time.

Hannah getting sticky fingers....

This is the first rotary build I have done. It went well and was quite fun/satisfying The best bit I think was tightening the through bolts up and seeing the 0.75mm gaps between the plates and housings where the water seal O rings were holding them apart close up for a nice tight seal (hopefully...)

It was tricky getting the middle plate in place- Hannah had to pull the eccentric shaft up 1" while I moved the plate into position. Looking back now I think it would be much easier just to have put a block of wood on table under shaft to lift it the required height but hey- thats learning eh!

The worst bit was the bloody woodruff key for the oil pump- I kept getting pushed out as I tried to slip both pulleys on at same time with chain attached. Speaking of oil pumps- I had bought a later oil pump from a 12a turbo engine- it has 17mm wide rotors in it rather than the 12mm wide ones my engine had. I stripped both down for a quick looksie and my old ones show scoring from sucking up some crap in the sump- I would have thought the oil would go through the filter first..Nup. So I made sure the sump and underside of block was well clean inside before finally mounting sump in place.

I also modified both oil pressure regulators- the front one I added an 1/8th" shim under spring and the rear one I took to a friends garage, used his press and squashed the top down. Both these mods will give 80-90 psi rather than the stock 60ish. So with my high flow pump and upped pressure the engine should be a bit safer for its increased power output.

Front regulator...

Rear Regulator...

For the oil pump to front cover feed I fitted a .5mm thicker O ring then the standard Mazda item because the Mazda supplied one only just sits proud of the gasket. I have read of problems here where the oil pressure can force past the O ring and so dropping overall pressure. Some people fit the cover with out the gasket to squash the O ring more but I don't think there is enough of a step in the casting to hold the o ring in place under high pressure where as with the gasket fitted and surrounding the o ring it cant go anywhere.

Tonight I gave the new centre plate a matching coat of colour ad went over the whole thing touching up where the paint had chipped while it was stripped. I'm using Resene water based enamel. Its more flexible to cope with expansion plus its resistant to petrol, oils etc. I'm curious to see how it'll hold up.

Dave (avenger tiger) is coming across tomorrow to help fit the engine back in place- hopefully we'll start it up!

i think the victor 3.3 discs on mine are 10"- same as hpf firenza. Geoff- Do you know if princess calipers work on them too?