L28 headers for fuel injection/carb

Pedey · Post by **Pedey** » Tue Aug 20, 2013 11:13 am

Hi guys,

In a bit of a pickle, got our motor back and started fitting up bits and pieces to find that the exhaust and intake manifolds are a long way off getting along with each other. This appears to be because my headers are built for an L28E:

So a few questions:

Is anyone interested in purchasing my current headers, they're quite nice and appear to be HPC coated?

Does anyone have any carb specific headers in decent condition that they would like to swap/sell me?

djz · Post by **djz** » Tue Aug 20, 2013 12:22 pm

Angle grinder will probably fix that for you!

Pedey · Post by **Pedey** » Tue Aug 20, 2013 12:49 pm

djz wrote:Angle grinder will probably fix that for you!

Doubtful, the flange for the intake manifold rests on the top of the header putting it quite a long way off, as pictured:

I'd be stoked if I could just grind it...

nzeder · Post by **nzeder** » Tue Aug 20, 2013 1:03 pm

There are different triple intake manifold designs too so one of the other designs might have the carbs at different location.

limezed · Post by **limezed** » Tue Aug 20, 2013 6:54 pm

They do appear to be rather short. The Cannon, redline, linx ones seem to be longer.

I'm sure NZeder has a couple of dozen different designs in the shed.

ZMAD · Post by **ZMAD** » Tue Aug 20, 2013 7:10 pm

Welcome to the nightmare!!!!

nzeder · Post by **nzeder** » Tue Aug 20, 2013 7:17 pm

limezed wrote:They do appear to be rather short. The Cannon, redline, linx ones seem to be longer.

I'm sure NZeder has a couple of dozen different designs in the shed.

Pedey has a redline manifold - aka long and low a bit like the cannon items. I sold most - Andy has one, one went on SAMURI when I had that and my FET intake was sold a long time ago

and Garry has the other one I imported from Japan a long time ago - now owned by Garry (that is a long story maybe over beer one night

)

Pedey · Post by **Pedey** » Tue Aug 20, 2013 8:12 pm

nzeder wrote:
limezed wrote:They do appear to be rather short. The Cannon, redline, linx ones seem to be longer.

I'm sure NZeder has a couple of dozen different designs in the shed.
Pedey has a redline manifold - aka long and low a bit like the cannon items. I sold most - Andy has one, one went on SAMURI when I had that and my FET intake was sold a long time ago and Garry has the other one I imported from Japan a long time ago - now owned by Garry (that is a long story maybe over beer one night )

I really dig those FET manifolds, super cool.

Damn I was really hoping someone would have a good set of headers to sell me.

nzeder · Post by **nzeder** » Tue Aug 20, 2013 8:26 pm

What about the sets on trademe for $450?

Also Peter what did you do to the carbs to make them so bling - polish with ??? or blast with ?? or Sonic Clean etc?

Pedey · Post by **Pedey** » Wed Aug 21, 2013 1:22 pm

nzeder wrote:What about the sets on trademe for $450?

Also Peter what did you do to the carbs to make them so bling - polish with ??? or blast with ?? or Sonic Clean etc?

I actually purchased a Eastwood polishing kit and spent countless nights first sanding them back, then going through four different stages of polish. Time consuming, but I find the process entirely cathartic for some reason.

In other news, in a strange turn of events I did some snooping and found a number for the guy selling those headers on Trademe. 30 minute convo later and it turns out he not only built the headers that I currently have, he actually built them when he owned the car. He was the guy who originally did all the work on the car, gave me a bit of history - pretty cool.

Anyway, he actually has a jig for fancier equal length headers, which he can make for me, more expensive of course. Worth it over non equal length? I've done a bit of research into the matter and it seems like somewhat of a black art.

Maybe one of the mods could move this to the tech section?

nzeder · Post by **nzeder** » Wed Aug 21, 2013 2:25 pm

That will be Peter Macley of Custom Chambers. I think we have all had headers from him at some point in time - well those that have

1. Owned a zed for a long time
2. Owned more than one zed
3. Raced or tracked a zed at some point in time.

Peter used to own a Zed going back years and years ago.

The headers on Ricky's car are variation of the equal length items you are talking about. I ran the non equal length items on the old black 240z race car (has been on trademe a few times of late - it is up north). The equal length items are copy of the Datsun Competition USA items from back in the day. The non equal length are much like the Nissan Japan Factory items - a little bit different but very close which I believe were made by Fujistubo or Trust-Power back in the day - you can still get these from them today but usually SS and very $$$.

Cheers
Mike

EDIT: Moved to the Tech Section

PS I just used some CRC carb cleaner on mine - I think they came up great without hard polishing/sanding - spray and wipe

removed all the old dirt/dust and discolouration. Pic attached

I only have another 6 carbs todo

Pedey · Post by **Pedey** » Wed Aug 21, 2013 2:55 pm

Cheers for that,

In your opinion, would they be worth it for my application in terms of performance? It's my understanding that they would be quite a bad idea on a stock motor - I certainly wouldn't want to spend the extra to lose performance.

I guess it depends on your definition of 'stock'. Our L28 is 10:1 C/R, fairly aggressive cam, triple carbs obviously - worth it?

As for the carbs, yea I tried doing similar to what you've done, but in the end I decided to put the time in as I wanted them to have a bit of wow factor.

nzeder · Post by **nzeder** » Wed Aug 21, 2013 8:23 pm

Well they do look bling. I was thinking about getting a 2.5L ultasonic cleaner.....but $$ are tight (having to spend a sh!t load on the house after some rats made a mess in the roof, wiring, hrv ducts and kitchen extractor duct all chewed - none of which is covered by insurance) that will teach me to live in the country.

So I took the quick and speedy approach - given I have 2 zeds that need assembly, baby number 4 due any day, our NZ IT guy resigned leaving me to look for his replacement and do the work he was doing now he has left so time in the shed is not something I have ;(

I think the CRC Clean R Carb did a good job.

I am not an engine builder or cylinder head/flow guy....just an IT guy....so I am not qualified to answer your question but I would have thought the non equal length would be good enough for most road/track cars that are not looking to make all the gains an engine has to give - ie if 180hp or 200hp is enough then the unequal unit are more than up to the task. If you are looking for the extra 3 or 5 (could be more) HP then spend more than double the price of the unequal units for tuned length items. But for that you want to be spending at least 4x the header cost on the head - then if you are spending that much you better look at the bottom end too and bin those 40mm type R mikuni's and look for 44 phh mikuni's at least.....then you will be making the HP to justify the extra $$ on tuned length header.

Having said that if you do plan to one day go down the "get all the HP you can road" then it could be wise to get the tuned length now and get them ceramic coated so they will last aka HPC or Procoat (get the extra high temp on the inside at least)

That is just my non expert 2c worth

ZMAD · Post by **ZMAD** » Wed Aug 21, 2013 9:29 pm

NZEDER-Bugga about the rats, Trees close to house give them easy access to ceiling. I have seen a customer of mine use an electric rat trap near man hole. Works well.

nzeder · Post by **nzeder** » Wed Aug 21, 2013 9:53 pm

ZMAD wrote:NZEDER-Bugga about the rats, Trees close to house give them easy access to ceiling. I have seen a customer of mine use an electric rat trap near man hole. Works well.

no tree's water tanks they can run up the concert of the water tank. Or the brick work - I closed of the corners in the roof with chicken mesh, then no rats for 3 days - then they were back....had 4 traps in the roof including the electric one you talk about - caught one that way....but not the electric version....just the normal snap job with peanut butter. So then I thought how are they getting in still. So I checked all the weep holes - some were large. OK out with the duct tape as a test. Covered them up...bam 2 days with no rats and they are back. Check the duct tape - yep one was chewed through and not the ones at ground level but under the window.

Right - time for the chicken mesh again - weep holes closed up (but house can still vent via the folder up jammed in mesh) = rats stuck in the roof = that was when the damage was done. They were in their for 3 days. Then gone - WTF - how did they get out. Following night I heard them coming again...f'n things via the roof again. So in the country when on tank water you don't ideally want to use poison as they will look for water = might get into the tank = there goes your safe drinking water.

But no choice - out comes the poison - now no rats - but have to go back into the roof and find and remove the dead things - found 1 yesterday - follow your nose. But one is in the eves or down the wall so have to wait for it dry up and the smell to go....

Fun and games.....and now I have to do something for next year before winter again when they start to look for a dry place. No more will come in now as they would have found their place for the winter/wet season. I have a good hay shed they should have stayed in.

$$ I did not need to spend. The only good RAT is a DEAD RAT.

Back on topic now