life long datsun/nissan guy.

[nisracer]

i've been a nissan person my whole life, always loved them! i grew up with my dad having a 720 pickup, and an 84 s12 turbo which ended up being my first car. and since then i've had 2 s12 turbo's, 7 240sx's one of which with a full built t3/t4 ka-t, and a 94 infiniti g20 for cars, and trucks i've had a 72 620, an 80 720, a 96 hardbody 4x4, an 08 frontier, now have a 2010 titan cc with some goodies, and i just picked up a 86 hardbody kc to toy around with and save gas. which leads me to here lol.

 

i've found alot of great information here on this forum and you guys all seem like a great bunch, so i figured i'ed join and share my project, and hopefully get some help along the way. with my new little hardbody project i'm going more datsun style with it. i even have thoughts of doing an l20b head swap on my z24. i have already done a bunch of stuff to it asfar as maintenence stuff and removing a few "rats nests" from the previous owner, it looked like a 6 year old worked on the truck, i cant believe it didnt burn down haha. also slammed it down a little bit, on 3" blocks and torsions, and i've got pinto shocks up front, and quest shocks in the rear, i also put on my old stock titan wheels. i just recieved my weber 38 outlaw carb this last week, and im tapping holes in the intake today so i can get it going again and start driving it, im throwing out all the efi and emissions crap and going back to a more basic setup. within a few months of accumulating, i'm going to pick up a motor, and do a basic build with a cam and ka pistons. if it's not too difficult i will do the l20 swap, but i still need to figure out if the head ache is worth the gains lol.

 

before the drop

after the drop.. i'll get some better pics up eventually.

 

i took the intake off lastnight, and dropped it off with a buddy so he can tap it for the mounting plate, and plug up a couple emissions ports.

 

i'm really excited to have a project agian, with my titan it's just bolting parts on and go, no challenge, building up this truck is alot of fun, i love how you can frankenstien them together lol.

 

one thing i noticed and i think is retarded is why the heck did they have to fill the intake with water? i can see why the run it through part of it, but why did they run it in all the runners and everything? and if i were to block off or weld up the holes on the block, would it effect water movement through out the block? im wondering if the hks manifold has water passages, or if it's just solid to block off the passage.

[nisracer]

the body is kinda rough, and the paint is just like some tractor paint or something. so im going to do the body work and paint it. i'm undecided on if i want to just rat it out, and do an old school beat up bomber paint sceme, or just do the bodywork and paint it a nice shiny color. i have a vision in my head of a dark grey/rusty/burnt rat looking paint job, but i dont know if it will look retarded on this new of a truck lol

[datzenmike]

The water is there to keep the manifold and the air in it at a more constant temperature. Warmer in winter and cooler in summer. This makes the motor run more consistently/efficiently and get better mileage/performance. Trust the factory engineers, they wouldn't design it to run worse because of it. EFI motors don't often have this feature because the gas is injected at 35 PSI and better atomized and is closer to the intake valve so less chance of it condensing and forming small droplets.

 

 

The only problem with an L head on a Z24 is it has more displacement being squeezed into a smaller combustion chamber so the compression is going to go up. A Z24 with the largest L combustion chamber will have a compression of 9.47. Running KA pistons will reduce the piston dish from15cc down to 2.8cc and effectively make the combustion chamber even smaller. The compression will go up to 11.76. Not good for a street motor.

[nisracer]

The water is there to keep the manifold and the air in it at a more constant temperature. Warmer in winter and cooler in summer. This makes the motor run more consistently/efficiently and get better mileage/performance. Trust the factory engineers, they wouldn't design it to run worse because of it. EFI motors don't often have this feature because the gas is injected at 35 PSI and better atomized and is closer to the intake valve so less chance of it condensing and forming small droplets.

 

 

The only problem with an L head on a Z24 is it has more displacement being squeezed into a smaller combustion chamber so the compression is going to go up. A Z24 with the largest L combustion chamber will have a compression of 9.47. Running KA pistons will reduce the piston dish from15cc down to 2.8cc and effectively make the combustion chamber even smaller. The compression will go up to 11.76. Not good for a street motor.

 

thank you, you are full of excelent info man! that makes since with the water, i've had a few carb vehicles, but i never really had to work on them. all my experience is with ka24de's and still i have nowhere close to the knowledge you have lol.

 

on of the things i want to do with the build is acheive more compresion, i had read on one of your previous threads that the L head would bump compression, and also the ka pistons would. i was planning on doing one or the other. if the head swap was simple enough "not too much fab and $$$" i was going to do that, but if it isnt worth it, i plan to just do ka pistons and a web cam. for what i have read, it sounds like people have been using sohc ka pistons for the swap and it's putting them around 9.5:1, but for what i remember (and this may be backward) it seams that i remember hearing if you use sohc pistons on a dohc ka, it raises the compression. if this is true, the de pistons may have a deeper dish and might clear the Z valves with out machining the top of the piston? it would have lower compression, but even if it bumped upto 9:1 that would be better than having to machine the pistons right? also, does anyone know for sure if you can use the ka rods on the Z crank, i read on another thread that the ka rods are lighter, and floating wrist pins, it would be awesome if they all mounted up because, all my old 240sx buddies, i can get some rods and pistons for free e or de. basicly i think i will be contempt just keeping the z head, im not trying to build a race truck, just want it to run good, and not be so dang slow lol. i had thought about doing a full 240sx ka24de and tranny swap, but i dont want to deal with the wireing and converting to rear sump, custom drive line etc..... if i can get close or better i'll just be rebuilding the z motor.