A few people have commented that the 32/36 weber is too small, and it will choke the midrange badly on the 2.6L..... I dunno. First thing is to pull the carb off and see if it can be fixed I guess before messing around with conversions too much

don't they come on 4l fords?

nah you're thinking of the 34ADM weber that was on the XE/XF falcon

that's actually one of the other options that I can go with and should be jetted reasonably close

IMO the 32/36 would be perfect, or a little 180 holley, high air speed, exellent atomisation (?) for maximum fuel econ. seriously you wont max this carb with a stock l26.

Well I found a pair of 240Z SU's with no emissions crap which will simplify things a bit! I Can remove the charcoal canister and block everything up now. The carbs looked like they'd been sitting in someone's basement for about 10 years, the throttle shafts are nice and tight but they are massively gunked up and the fittings are a little worse for wear! None of the linkages were operating but a liberal application of WD40 and a kerosene bath for the last few days have amended most of that. I tracked down some rebuild kits and will put them together this weekend. Even managed to find a bottle of 20W datsun damper oil at the carby shop! I've got a mate who knows these carbs and has an airflow balancing tool so he's going to help me tune them. I've read about 20 different write-ups on tuning them so I think I've got it sorted. Looking forward to the extra power and hopefully smooth driving that they will deliver - fingers crossed!

I think I might take to the Hitachi carb with a baseball bat and then set it on fire after this is done. Then again I've already got a rebuild kit here so I might pull it apart and put the new gear in before selling it on ebay perhaps.

Quick question: anyone reckon I should bother changing the needles to 260Z items? I wasn't going to. Could probably use the extra fuel economy that the 2.4L jets provide I reckon.

Try the 240Z needles first before considering any change. A 200cc difference doesnt seem to worry when swapping twin 180BSSS carbs on to an L20.

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RichardC
SSS016

Got the SU's on and running this weekend after much buggering around! Ran into some problems - including the bloody exhaust manifold has a giant flapper valve and a heater plate which is supposed to heat the bottom of the carb. There's a blanking plate over the top which you can put back on - but the bolts holding it on are quite long (they go through the carby as well) so you need shorter ones. The threads are M12x1.75 and M9x1.25 or something retarded. I've got a huge box of bolts but these two thread sizes are impossible to find - why couldn't the bastards make them M12x1.5 and M10xanything???!?!?! BASTARDS!!!!

Anyway what I ended up doing was just threading in a M12x1.5 bolt and tightening it down LOL, and used an M8x1.25 which gripped enough for the other two. This holds the blanking plate on. I'll put some pics up later of all this rubbish.

Anyway I bolted on the freshly cleaned SU's and intake, then spent about an hour messing around with float levels getting it right. I used the method of screwing the adjuster nut on the jet down by 10 turns (it's a 1mm pitch so that's 10mm down as per this: http://www.zcarz.us/TechnicalInformatio ... ration.htm) and then trying to get the fuel level to the top of the jet. After much buggering around it was working fine.

Put in the SU damper oil I got from the carby man, filled it up to the top mark on the damper shaft. Dropped the adjuster nuts down 2 turns and cranked it. Fired up straight away, phew! But it was idling poorly and missing and farting..... we couldn't clean it up no matter what we tried. Then I randomly unplugged the float bowl overflow line off one carb and it started running perfectly - looks like the return line that I was using which goes back to the tank is a no-go, it must be blocked or something - if you air vent the overflow fittings on the float bowl it runs perfectly. So we went to tuning them - equalised the airflow with a nifty little gizmo that my mate had and then fiddled with teh mixtures until the idle didn't move at all when we lifted the pistons slightly.

Went for a drive and YES - much better. No hesitation off idle, the idle is smooth and consistent and there is a bit more grunt in the midrange. It runs fantastically and I'm pretty happy!

Now the next problem - choke cables. The 260C has an electric choke and these are manual cable-operated things. I went to the bike shop last week and got some brake cable and guide tube for a bike, then we rigged up a bracket to hold them. Didn't finish it completely but it's nice and neat - bolts to the top of the rocker cover and should work brilliantly. Just gotta find somewhere to feed it through the firewall and then mount a knob somewhere in the dash. Didn't really need any choke to start today in 13-15 degree weather though which is a good sign that everything is well!

Another problem is that the bloody 260C heater fitting on the firewall hits the rear of the 260Z filter assembly. So I'm on the lookout for a pair of small filters to fit to the SU's - I can only find K&N stuff at the moment which looks pretty expensive. Any other options out there? Going to have to figure out what to do with the rocker cover breather as well.....

Any pics?

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1980 Datsun 280ZX 2+2
1982 Megasquirted Datsun Bluebird 1.8SSS
1973 Datsun 260C, Hardtop.

Have a look at the float bowl LOL

Another pic showing the front of one of the carbs - note the piston being held up, jammed in place by the crud that has settled around it over god knows how many years sitting in the dirt;

And disassembled, soaking in kerosene bath. Trying to keep the rubber grommets out of the bath in case they degrade!

Not shown; 3 hours of scrubbing, spraying, brushing and wiping to get them clean. You should have seen the rust and scale jammed in the fuel fittings on the float bowl.... I thought they were non-salvageable but couldn't find any metric 6mm fittings to replace them with, so I cleaned them out with steel wool and a brush, ran a tap around the rusted threads to clean them up and stuck them back together. Absolutely amazed they were fixable. A wasp had made a mud home in one of the needle seat fittings LOL

Haven't taken any photos of the finished product but they came up pretty well - I'll snap some shots when my new filters arrive.

I think it's pretty impressive that not only was I able to clean them and resurrect them from the grave, but they worked absolutely brilliantly once they were cleaned up!

This is running awesomely now that my pancake filters have arrived. Will take some pics and post when I remember on the weekend.

I ended up running a simple breather filter on the cam cover and can't smell any fumes in the cabin - must have a pretty healthy engine.

Only problem now is that the chokes make it run super rich - black crud out the tailpipe when full choke is applied to start it on a cold morning. I will try bending the choke actuator arm to open the throttle butterfly a bit more early and see if that helps - it idles quite roughly until up to temp, then it smooths out perfectly. Also evidence of condensation post-carby on the inlet and it's icy cold to touch, is that normal? I did follow the rebuild kit instructions on the choke settings but had to close up the throttle butterfly a bit - maybe I should have left it as it was. Easy enough to re-bend the arm and open the throttle butterfly a bit anyway I hope.

I think if it's over rich with the choke then the butterfly needs to open more for the same amount of choke. I don't know anything about these carbies but that rule kinda applies to any carbies. I even had that problem on my two barrel.

Not sure about the condensation

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1973 H230 Wagon, 'ILL-260'
1975 911S Targa
1978 Torana Hatch
1999 GXE10

yeah i figured as much heath. will re-bend the shafts a little and see if it improves things

re-bent the shafts and hooked up my locking choke mechanism from ebay. starts instantly in cold weather with about 1/4 choke. happy.

still pushes out a bit of black smoke though, but if i open the throttle plates any more it revs too high at cold idle? strange. Anyway it's good enough and the choke assembly works brilliantly. Mounted it under the right hand side of the dash in an unused spot next to the boot release. I've attached a few pics;