daeron

Kilometers per gallon??? Raise your hand if you are an american, ashamed by the intellectual laziness of your country, AND embarrassed by the fact that the rest of the world patiently waits for us to come around! *raises*hand*

okay.... 26 years old, im finally humbling myself enough... WTF is double clutching??????? I dont own a 5speed soob, but i hate my automatic.. my old datsun used to occasionally have issues going into reverse, and I would shift into second to help that.. because the first, second, and reverse synchros were all on the same shaft on those trannies.. never had an issue with a rolling downshift into first (the Z has this thing called "torque," she can take off in third if I am careful, and mebbe even fourth ) but that wouldve been my second thing to try... any time *I* have an issue getting a tranny into a gear, I just blip the throttle up to where the engine RPMS want to be, in that gear, at whatever speed I am going. Manual Synchronization works wonders.... is THAT double clutching??? Good god, I miss my stickshift.... *cry* even after driving my soob for 2 1/2 years my left foot still pounds on the floorboards when I get stuck in traffic that i KNOW i could drive around, were I in my Zcar...

my automatic FWD SPFI gl-10 pulls around 26MPG, highway or city. I drive it like I stole it, first off the line at every redlight, (patiently, carefully, and with turn signals I) weave all through traffic, and judging by the "analog" air/fuel gauge (my exhaust leaks, and I can hear the mixture change as I punch the pedal ) im always running rich just because of my foot on the pedal Another thing that can be done to improve fuel mileage is to simply put slightly larger tires on your car... you will not notice the difference if you continure to calculate your mileage with your odometer, because your speedometer and odometer readings will be slightly off as a result; but you WILL save on gas. the flip side of this coin is that the car will be slower, but not too much. Automatic transmissions take at LEAST as mush power to run as an Air Conditioner.... and even with a part time 4wd car, switched into FWD, it drags more on the engine and economy suffers. You might want to try advertising on the board, trying to find someone with a FWD soob that wants your 4wd drivetrain! Then, look at GeneralDisorder's write up for converting the EA-81 to SPFI, and just swap SPFI onto your car. then you would have a FWD SPFI car capable of easily achieving 30-35MPG. And I mean UTTERLY no offense to anyone on the forum, but I will echo things that I have heard before when I say that hearing a claim of 40+mpg in an ea82 makes me question the calculations.. tire sizes, actual refill volumes, proper calibration of the tires size vs the odometer...... there really are about seven or eight different places to make a mistake. However, I am also UTTERLY incapable of driving as if there was an egg between my foot and the gas pedal, so I may be unfairly biased in this...

I am not a sage, but my understanding is that you cannot shave the heads enough to really make an appreciable difference before your intake manifold no longer fits. :-\ I *may* be wrong, but I don't think so.

yah, but the starter switch only fails to conduct the high amperage needed to operate the solenoid.. it obviously is making some contact, or we weould get no click at all. the problem arises with the switch being no longer able to fuse that kind of current.. putting the relay under the hood means that the amperage flow required through this switch is reduced a hundredfold...at least. If the ignition switch is totally FAILED, then it wouldnt fix the problem, and you can just rig a cheapo $5 pushbutton switch up to a relay the exact same way.. but if the ignition switch failed utterly, chances are the "accessories" and "run" aspects won't be too far behind.. the main initial problem lies in the overall buildup of resistance in the circuit.. I have felt specific solder joints get very hot while trying and clicking.. after relaying, they are ice cold.

We have these delightfully simple little cars... SO easy to work on and tweak, and they even come with a built-in limiter to keep us from getting too involved... I was just over on hybridZ.org drowning in information I couldn't friggin handle. I am a pretty smart guy.. Automotive engineering/mechanics is NOT my strong point in the slightest, but I have fun and I know my limits... one of the joyous things about finding this forum was the discovery that this subaru is TOTALLY within my limits, even as they were THEN.. check this thread out. I am sure some of you will be able to pick right up and read it.. and I understood what everyone was talking about, but it was still over my level. Flow dynamics within different possible custom intake manifolds on an old inline 6 datsun engine...... http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=113623&highlight=intake+custom or this one, discussing cylinder head customization.... http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=108398&highlight=intake+custom My point is, its nice to have powerful engines... but it is ALSO very VERY nice to have simple ones. Thank Fuji they even left us with the fairly simple motor swap to get to that power we all crave (E-J! E-J!) and its not like the datsun L-series is the pinnacle of automotive engineering, either.... its a fairly simple design.. my point was basically, our EAs arent WORTH this much effort, and sometimes that is a GOOD thing... ..because now I am reeling, thinking about how much reading and discussion I am gonna have to do to actually build my Z. Mods, if this seems miscategorized, feel free to move it. I just felt like discussing it in the forum that is so responsible for turning me from a shadetree hack into a serious gearhead... plus it is also a comment on the relative simplicity of operating and tuning our EAs, in comparison to a motor roughly equivalent on the tech side but with much much more room to grow, performance-wise. (400+ WHP out of a stroked turbocharged Lseries 6 )

its your cash, and your car. Soend three bucks on ten feet of ten or eight gage wire. Spend fifteen, twenty bucks on a high amperage switch. take at least as much time to install a safe circuit as the relay idea. and wind up with a $30 starter switch that heats up and will in time, fail, just like your stock system.. My starter relay circuit cost me nothing but time, because it was all little relay stuff out of a 96 BMW that I pocketed in the JY one day.. even had I paid for it, it would have come to under $20. I needed to use about four feet total of 10 gage wiring, and an inline 30 amp fuse for the high current going to the relay. MY plans are to use these BMW relay brackets to relay the starter, electric fan, headlights, and ignition circuit on my Z-car using this bracket, ALSO obtained from said BMW The wires that go in these plugs are easy to find and replace, so I just hunted around until I found two good, heavy gage terminals to put in for the high current terminals, and I was good to go. I only used one of these little relay plugs all by itself on the soob, since I was only relaying the one circuit. The 3-5 relay bracket, though, comes complete with a molded plastic cover and everything. As for "flaky" relays, I don't care. I have a handful of 40 amp relays out of various european cars.. some say VW, some say Audi, some say Hella, but they are all bosch units. Easily purchased new if I wanted to, and even more easily obtained in a boneyard.

FYI FWIW if you look at the spec chart for any tire on tirerack.com, it will tell you the outside diameter of that tire, as well

pop the disty cap off, and have someone watch it while you crank the engine. If the distributor turns as it should, then your driver side timing belt is still intact.. (distributor is turned by the drivers side camshaft) that doesn't mean it is OK, the belt may may have slipped. the passenger side timing belt may have gone, too. The front covers of the timing belts have inspection holes (at least the passenger does) report back with your findings and we can go from there.

Ed: I am not a pack rat either. Honest.

The simplest way to think of it is thus... You say that you have been "jumping" the starter by routing 12VDC directly to the solenoid terminal to get it to start. You do this, because the system in the car designed to do just that (the ignition switch) is no longer supplying enough current to get the job done, due to resistance that has built up in the wires, the solder connections, and the switch over the years... The relay we suggest installing is basically a little box that does the exact same thing. Four terminals to the relay: 85, 86, 87, and 30. Four wires to attach. 30 goes to a fused power source, this is high current from battery to relay. 85 is where you connect the wire currently attached to the solenoid terminal, this wire comes from the keyswitch and tells the relay to switch "on" 86 is the relay ground (it is an electronically operated switch, so it needs its own ground to function) and 87 is high current from the relay to the starter solenoid terminal. Think of the relay as a dummy assistant, just there to jumper your solenoid. Instead of saying "Hey buddy, hit the starter!!" you turn your key, sending juice to the relay. This causes the relay to close (switch "on") and your starter starts. Voila! If I spelled it out a little clearer than necessary, please don't take offense. I am actually trying to find the most effective way to word this so I can write it up for the USRM, and actually ANY automobile site. Abnormal resistance in the starter circuit (as well as many other circuits) is a problem like corroded CTS connections.. very common to old cars in general, not just soobs.

The relay is simply the safest way to wire in an auxiliary switch.. I mean, chances are fairly minimal that 12VDC is gonna cause a fire or something, but it DOES happen (happened to me Z!!! ) Plus, the biggest reason that the issue comes up in these older cars is, the wiring simply cannot take the amperage load after all these years.. So, we shorten the wiring that carries that high amperage, and we avoid routing that amperage through the cabin.. instead the only juice flowing through the switch is a low amperage "signal" current to trigger the relay. You could use the stock solenoid wire coming off of the ignition switch to signal your relay, or if you want to big pushbutton starter switch, you can use THAT to signal your relay.. but the switch by itself is not the wisest idea. Yes, it has been done many many times, and will be done successfully in the future.. but it is not the *right* way. skip, would you mind horribly if I were to link to that image in the future??

1987 ea82 spfi, 144K on the engine (gross, huh?) occasional ticking when the oil is low somehow.. and I've got no bleeding idea what my oil pressure is, ever, because of the F@<ing DIGIDASH!!!

My issue was with an EA82 car, but my datsun has the same problems.. and they are resolved by installing a relay to do the "jumping" for you :-p the relay just happens to be activated by the old wire coming from the keyswitch

I *KNEW* it had to make more sense than that... my mistake! I wound up ordering through 1stsubaruparts.com anyhow, so its moot. I have had a couple of different threads here, and i must've gotten wires in my head crossed, and forgot I had posted that thanks for the heads up.

You like that?? heres another about up that same alley.. both of these are compliments of my old man.. You get in a car, and try to start it, and it doesn't turn over. Two possibilities.. bad starter, or low voltage. To check and see if your battery is strong enough to crank the car, turn the headlights on and hit the horn... if the headlights come on and the horn sounds clearly, chances are your battery has enough juice in it to crank your car over, and the starter system is likely to be the culprit.. Anyhow, back on topic with the thread, I figured I would add to your response, that when you say "bad ignition switch" then it merely means "bad" in the sense I was describing above.. IE, easily remedied by integrating a relay into the circuit.. can you tell im kinda hinting that I am fond of a certain retro-engineering project?? :brow: anyhow, hope you get it figured out without too much difficulty. FAR from an uncommon problem; most of us have experienced it on one or two cars, if not our subarus...

Um, the intake gaskets and the cam tower O-rings are on order from 1stsubaruparts.com, this was just the headgasket

Sorry- I live in south florida, in the EXTREME southeast corner of the United States. (I actually just looked at a world map to find a rough estimate of my latitude.. I'm about even with Cairo, Egypt.) In addition to my southern location, we have the warm Gulf Stream flowing a mile offshore right here, so "winter" may as well me a foreign word to me I mean, I am wearing a sweater right now.. but its like, almost 70 degrees outside during the day. What I am trying to say is, I hadn't even considered the climate when I mentioned the touch-up. You say this car was painted with a roller; do you have any information on how that was done?? I read a detailed description on doing it with a metal enamel paint (labelled as "Rustoleum" in the US, but something else in Canada) that involved using a high density foam roller, and thinning the enamel paint out with mineral spirits. The end result of the proper dilution was to get the paint to "lay down" after being rolled, and form a smooth, continuous surface simply through surface tension.. Kinda like a slightly overfilled glass of water. was this what was done on your car? I ask because I have an old Zcar I am working on, and I want to paint the old datsun logo on the roof... the more I think about painting the car, the more I think about painting it with a roller.. but I am trying to find more people who have done it to talk to.

there are inspection holes in the timing belt covers, if you can find them. I threw my timing belt covers away a long time ago so I cannot tell you where, but I know they exist.. Also, the distributor is turned by the driver's side camshaft. If you take the disty cap off, and turn the engine over, the rotor should turn.. if not, the drivers side timing belt is blown. You can also remove a spark plugs from the motor and plug each hole in one side with your finger, and have someone turn the crankshaft with a socket on the front pulley.. if you feel a compression pulse on both of them, then your timing belts are OK. Both sets of valves couldnt be stuck closed at the same time, could they? The best way to check is the inspection covers. The disty is easy to check, but it only tells you one side is OK or not. if it fails the disty test, then great, you know what the problem is.. but passing the disty test only means the one is good, the other might be bad. EDIT Well gee, no one had replied when I started typing..and my response was a muddled up, more confusing version of what indrid cold said. I was just trying to be helpful

Lookin Hot!!!! you ought to get some different colored cans of spray primer and touch up the little bits of rust, or something.. My dad has a back-yard body repair method he calls 50/50.. meaning that it looks good from fifty feet away, or at fifty miles per hour.... just something rough and approximate

:cool: Eheheheheheheh......

lots of different alternators have different pulleys.. and different spacers. What you need is either a pulley for the V-belt, and a spacer; or a pulley with a molded spacer of an appropriate size; or a spacer to fit behind the two circular plates that make up your old V-belt pulley. Whatever you get, needs to be spaced out from the hub bushing of the alternator to line up with the belts. If you get your larger wrenches, and something to immobilize the alternators in the junkyard (big screwdriver in the fan, or get inventive) then you can go to the junkyard and start picking apart alternators until you find the bits that you need. Or, you can go to an alternator/auto electrical shop in your area, if you can find one, and they oughta have odd parts like the required spacer hanging around.

You can buy battery cables with extra wires molded into the lead terminal, that come with crimps to attach to the wires in the car... or you could put large ring terminals on the other positive power wires and thread them on the bolt. The BEST way would be to get the cable with the molded wires, cut the crimp connections off, and solder the thing in (using heat shrink tubing, of course).

Good point, have you ever looked into replacing the charging wire on your car? IIRC, thats the large wire coming off the positive lug of the alt, going into the fusible link block. Add a ground between alternator and battery, and a ground between engine and chassis.. Try temporary ground straps (jumper cables) and see if your voltage comes up any.

try either side of the driver's seat, just outside of the headrest :-p Air horns arent all that expensive, and they are easy to mount. Somehow my brother came across this silly horn speaker apparatus that, whenever I clip the red wire onto the battery, says "Thank you!" until its disconnected... priceless