An entire child and wife free day - golden hours for Z work!!!!
The day was a race against the clock as rain was forecast for 16:00.
Like all jobs on our cars, it's a lot of excitement, anticipation, planning and doing the job in your head - then the reality of actually doing it and working around stuff or discovering other things you can deal with before fitting!
Previously, I coated the header insides with this bad boy. Not sure how good or bad it will be but at under £40 it's worth a shot and a heck of a lot cheaper than the ceramic coating I had done before. As an experiment I also did just the pipe that goes from the centre resonator to the S bend. That way I can measure the outside temps at a later date and determine if it works.
This view never fails to scare me!! And it jolly well should!
You'll noice in the photos that I had gone back to the 280zx dizzy as I've been blaming the 123ignition for my rough running woes. But it made no difference. I suspect the leaks had a lot to do with it. I plan to properly plot the curve of the 280zx before I go back to 123.
Ports plugged to stop small nesting creatures and debris getting in. I set about fastidiously cleaning all mating surfaces to ensure no more leaks with the new install.
Clearly I've been running way rich as Mr Farmer pointed out and so I de-coked as much as was practical using brake cleaner, redex and lots of microfibre cloths. What is delicious to the touch is how smooth those ports are inside. Someone defo spent a lot of time loving that head.
There is a little extra bit of metal that I think is a mini heatshield on just off the side of the sump. Could not remove it for love nor money, so out came the lump hammer to move it towards the block by about 5-10mm to allow the header to fit.
A test fit showed that the header plate is not 100% flat and see-sawed from the middle, but tightening it up sorted that out and I'm sure a bit of heat over time will help it settle to it's new shape.
Grinding a mil was necessary for one of the studs to fit.
Totally not convinced by 18lbft as it felt too little for something that will vibrate and will need to bed in. I went by feel and testing it with a torque wrench it came out to about 25lbft.
As you can see it's a pretty tight fit to get all that pipework into the engine bay. I suspect I will need to build a mini heatshield to protect the chassis rail paint and the rubber on the compression rod.
I finally convinced myself to get rid of the manifold cooling pipe between the inlet manifolds - thanks to the MAP torch again, it looks much cleaner.
Once the manifold was in, I started on the rest, purposely keeping all clamps firm but loose enough to be able to adjust as I went.
The collector pipe work seemed to foul or be within vibrating / knocking range of the gearbox and it's cross member. There were a couple of millimetres of adjustment on the manifold which helped but it is awfully close still. I think the weight of the rest helps pull it down a few crucial mils but a proper test drive will soon tell.
None of the hanging points align with anything on my 260 - I may have missed something obvious here. The silencer's in particular is about 2-3 inches further back from the mounting points on the chassis. A bit of fabrication coming up.
This view is quite funny but was an absolute joy for working on the rear parts - I am HUGELY pleased with the lift and equally nervous using it, but my confidence has grown.
All was going perfectly to time and then disastro!! As I was ready to fully tighten the resonator clamp it wouldn't budge - so I tried to undo it. It was resisting hard and just got harder and harder until it sheared. It felt like one of those galvanic reactions and it felt hot to the touch.
Just to make things more interesting, the heavens opened up. Mercilessly! Poor z with her ass up in the air was saturated. On the upside, no puddle in the driver's footwell, so my temp fix on the windscreen rubber may have worked.
To make the most of the weather I popped down to the local exhaust place and the soot covered chap told me "that's a main dealer part mate"! I did giggle.
It looks like they are available off eBay for under a tenner - thanks again to Mr Huw for pointing it out. I measured 90mm on the broken part.
A little time grinding off the broken bolt and a tad of creativity later, I managed to do a temp fix - much needed as I can't get the car in the garage and up the ramps without the engine running.
Also worth noting is that the original heatshield no longer fits and even if it did it would provide very little protection against all those yummie shiny pipes. But it's required for the throttle return springs to hook onto.
So I improvised for now - it's so wrong but works so right
I set about making a heatshield out of the material Mr Huw very kindly sent me. But it is too floppy and needs a spine to keep it stiff. So I have to think about that one a little longer and come up with something that looks neat.
It was hugely pleasing that she fired up without issue. A bitter sweet victory as I couldn't properly test or rev at 22:00. She is a lot more muted than my old lairy but I didn't get over 2.5k blipping rpm while getting into the garage. More of that anon.
For now, the Z sleeps in her lair like a soggy dog next to a radiator trying to dry out until I can next find some time to play with her.
First order will be to make some / spot weld mounting points and get the rear to hang properly. Then heat-shielding before a proper drive out. Can't wait!!!!!