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I want to know the pros and cons of each.Also i want to hear the opinions of others including owners perception.

Depends, really. Carbs have the simplicity factor going for them, as you don't have to worry about an ECU. They also, in my opinion, sound better with an aggressive cam, as there is no scroll muting and 'blurring' the sound, if that makes sense.


On the other hand, you are going to be the luckiest man alive if you can get 20mpg out of a carb L28 (though why you want to stick with an L28, I don't know. L29/30/31/32 is the way to go, but more on that later). Also, you are going to be limited with the max power that you can make with carbs. The MOST I have seen was right around 320 whp, out of a bored + stroked Rebello L32 Motor. That was a completely race prepped one, and a 'street' motor like mine (Rebello L30 N42 block, Rebello worked over E88 head, triple mikuni 44phh carbs, 275/485 cam by rebello) makes around 250 at the wheels.



Now, for turbos: The major benefit of the L28-32et is that you can make ALOT of power. 350whp isn't that uncommon out of a stock L28et with only an FMIC, bigger turbo, and reprogrammed ECU (well, injectors as well). Additionally, when you aren't romping the throttle, you will be able to get in the high 20s for highway milage (My carb L30 gets 18 if I stick to ~60mph).

On the other hand, turbos if you stray very far at all from stock, you are going to pretty much want/need a complete standalone ECU. Some of them like MegaSquirt are apparently easy to tune if you know how your car works, but I can't comment on that directly.


So it comes down to this: What are you looking for? high horse, boost, etc? Or are you wanting to go the KISS route, and willing to accept the limitations that come with it (Max power possible and not very good mileage?)



Personally, if you are going to build an engine for power, I would say do the following :
1) Make sure you get an N42 block. The F54 block is newer, but you can't bore extensively AND boost it safely.
2) Bore it out (don't remember the numbers for how much, HZ will know though), and either get an LD28 crank (the crank of the diesel 2.8s in maximas I think it was), and do the assorted rod/piston swapping to get it to 3.1L (Or get the Rebello 3.0 kit here:http://rebelloracing.com/nissan1.htm third option). Boring and stroking these puppies is an easy way to get more torque (and thus HP, since you aren't going north of 7,500rpm anyway)
3) Get a P90 head, along with the assorted turbo plumbing
4) Ditch the stock turbo and ecu, go with MS and a new turbo (can't help you with which one though)
5) FMIC, a good tune, etc, and you will be making 300+ hp for less money that a RB or LS swap.
6) There are also assorted things like suspension, rear end (R200 or bust, btw for Zs), wheels, tires, etc that you are going to want to research for this.



So....I guess the answer is what do you want with this Z?



My experience: I own/drive a '73 S30, 3.0L rebello built N42 block (40xxxx serial), triple side draft mikuni 44PHH carbs (biggest twin throat mikuni made, essentially two carbs that share a fuel bowl, with one throat per cylinder). It's my DD, so the MPG numbers I gave you earlier are real life driving, with a mix of city/highway (Overall average since January is ~16mpg. Hitting ~18 on the freeways, low of 10mpg in town only driving, high of 14 town only [the ten was when I fixed some stuff, and I was romping the throttle alot ]).

Some warnings about Zs:
If you don't like the smell of fuel and exhuast, don't get one
Be prepared to work
I hope you have good roads where you live, since light car + stiff suspension (which something tells me you will put on eventually) = hard ride.


Um.....yah. Pics of my engine setup and (old pic) of the car [Big pics ahead]:

i more into what more fun to drive in a everyday basis.i smell a lot of engine fumes from working with big rigs, i drink the lubricants and eat the jelly deposits lol JK.i think smelling fumes from a 5 or 6 inch pipe that spits black fumes isnt really heakth...lol.i dont know much about the meaning of l30 etc.does it mean how much liters or what?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kkUTXBbCLR0
i think i know the place chirs took the engine. its in the same city i am in. he was selling that car for 7k juts few weeks ago i wonder why.if you want the carb l28 which one will you use the turbo or n/a? how much will it cost? how much to increase the displacement? i already know this guy who does cheap motor swaps i think 100$ takes him a day.

i live close to highway


What if i want to stick to the l24 but i want to be like the z use in the safari rally?

thanks for help and the pics new pc background goodbye number 11 safari rally 240z

This post has been edited by IamThe280Z on Jun 23 2008, 08:11 PM

Awesome info Panzer well put.... fellow nissan/Datsun lover

clean setup man

This post has been edited by biggamehit on Jun 23 2008, 08:34 PM

Ok.....that doesn't really help, as both are going to be fun to drive, it depends on what kind of fun you want to have. Personally, I like making lots of noise, burning lots of gas, and generally getting nothing done in a spectacular fashion.

The 'L' denotes engine series, just like RB, VG, VQ, LS, etc. the '30' or '28' denotes engine size in deciliter. In other words, move the decimal one place to the left to figure out the size of the engine in liters (well, not on an LS, but on L/RB/VQ/VG/etc).

Um....what? Are you asking if I would go with FI or carbs for a turbo build? Or something else?

How much to increase the displacement? Depends on how much of the work you can do yourself, as well as the parts that you can find near you. If you know of a shop that will bore out the engine for not much, and can find a LD28 crank at a junkyard, it'll be very cheap. If you CAN'T find a place to bore it for cheap, and CAN'T find a LD28 (or a place to offset grind the regular crank) it could get very expensive.

I have no idea what the safari rally is. However, I'll be honest, unless there is some pressing reason to use the L24 engine, I'd sell it/toss it/do something else with it. It isn't worth keeping around if you want any kind of power. However, there are shops near me atleast that if you trade them your L24/26/28, they will do an entire RB26 swap for 4,000. So it might be worth it to you to stick the L24 in storage or something *shrugs*.

Heh, which picture did you use?

Thanks. I got lucky, most of the work was done by the PO. I basically regurgitated all that I have learned from my own carb experience along with all the reading I've been doing on HZ.

yeah, my grammar is a bit off or a lot.The noise is what i really like about the louder the noise the better. .If i want the l28 to run with carburetters do i get a n/a or the turbo version of the engine?

You have a 240z and do not know how well this Z performed especially when it went to Africa . The reason i asked about it because i like the sound of the engine of this car

i used the engine bay pic lol.

so what is the estimate you spent on this car excluding the car and lubricates ?





This post has been edited by IamThe280Z on Jun 23 2008, 11:17 PM

Get the N42 block. The block designation (N42 or F54) will be on the left side of the engine, just behind the engine mount. In all likely hood, if you build a car, you are going to be swapping heads around anyways, so the original use wasn't important, as long as you get the N42 (Actually though, the N42 only came on the 280Zs, with the F54 on the 280ZXs, but that is immaterial to this).

If it is noise that you want, then you are probably going to lean to a carb setup with a wild cam and little to no exhaust (make sure you stay reasonably close/within your local ordinances for noise though. Only reason my neighbors don't get pissed at me when I'm warming my car up in the morning, specially in the winter, is that alot of them used to have Zs).

I knew they were used extensively in off road racing (even the Baja 1000 and the Paris-Dakar), but that's not something I'm really interested in researching right now. (To busy with summer classes/restoring aircraft/looking for a paying job).

I actually got REALLY lucky, and the PO was the one that got the engine work done in the first place. However, the receipts say that the cost of a L29 to L30 conversion (PO probably did an over bore to get to the L29, since an LD28 crank would have made it cheaper to go straight to the L32), was about 3 grand. That includes the polishing up and working over that Rebello did to the head. Bear in mind as well that Rebello is one of the top of the line shops in the US for Datsun stuff, and the cost reflects that.

In all, I paid 5,800 for my Z, but the engine work alone would be more expensive, if you started from a straight rolling shell Z. Hell, my carbs go for about 500 EACH on ebay these days since mikuni isn't making them. So over a quarter of the cost of the car is in the carbs.

The amount that I personally have spent on the car other than oil/gas/etc is 90 bucks, to fix one of my centerlines that got owned by a pothole at night at an......impressive rate of speed.







edit: that's weird, none of my quotes are showing up as such on my screen.....

This post has been edited by Nomake Wan on Jun 24 2008, 01:02 AM

You made a typo in one of the quote tags. To prevent your post from completely breaking, the forum disables all quote tags if that happens. I've fixed it for you.

Also, maybe I don't know 240Zs or something... but isn't this thread really a silly question? Is there some reason you can't have a carbeurated turbocharged motor? I was under the impression you could.

Not to mention, if "better" is "better performance," wouldn't a turbocharged motor do quite a lot better than the naturally aspirated version of that same motor?

Just sounded like a really silly thread to me. Carry on.

Pure NA Carby man, nothing gives you to drama and aural delight of NA Carby crazy tuned!

You just need to attend a historical race in Japan to know what I mean

the carb/ turbo charge only works on the right handed 240zs not the left ones from the u.s.

Not really, if you look at l28 vids most of them are n/a carbed even the drag cars because i think it has better torque or something similar. Turbo charge doesn't mean better.

From my point of view the carburettor version sounds so vicious compared to the turbocharged which has a blurring' the sound when you rev it.

Thanks for the fix


As for turboing a carb engine. It is entirely possible, but there are some downsides to it:

1) No only do you have to sync your carbs still, but now you also have to get different jets to deal with the extra air
2) Pressurizing the fuel bowl
3) upgrading the fuel pump (which you would have to do if you wanted a turbo anyways, but w/e)
4) milage, you aren't going to get any
5) Finding the parts. You are going to need an HKS intake plenum, and while they did make them, they are VERY hard to find these days, almost as hard to find as the OS Giken DOHC L series heads.

Not true, lemme go find the picture.....



That is from the book 'Maximum Boost', it is an L series head with triple mikuni PH carbs.

Hmmm....can't find the picture I had for the LHD setup I found.....that annoys me >_<

Here is a picture though of the intake plenum you would need:


I'm wondering why you think it would only be possible on RHD Zs though. While it does seem to stick out a fair ways and could interfere with stuff, the regular L28et intake isn't all that much better:





Also, I think you might be under-estimating just how BIG a S30 engine bay is. Remember, people fit SBCs, LSxs, and even V12s in there, so almost anything is possible.




Edit: Oh, and as for sound:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ikNfMKo8WbY
http://youtube.com/watch?v=IngcRm3LsfM

That's my own Z

Edit(2): Don't ever get a cartech plenum unless you REALLY don't like your car.

This post has been edited by PanzerAce on Jun 24 2008, 11:38 AM

what about making it twin turbo?I really don't think its worth it for the effort. Its easier to grab those numbers with a ls1 in a 240z. Why do most people use the n/a then the turbo charge for drag?

Making a Z into a TT really isn't worth it. Most TT setups are designed to give more low end power, but as I've mentioned in another thread, the L series engine is a torque monster, so that isn't really applicable here. Additionally, you would basically have to get an entirely custom exhaust system, since AFAIK, no manufacturer is currently making them.

You're right, it is cheaper to get a given power number out of an LS engine, that is why my next Z is going to be an LS swap. An LS engine is going to be almost the same weight AND sit lower in the car. It will ALSO probably get better gas mileage because of the gearing. But some people like to keep things originally, and to be honest, I don't know if there is room in a Z for a TT LS setup. There might be, but I haven't seen any setups like that yet.

Um, I'm not sure what you are asking here.

yeah sorry lol.ddo you have any dyno sheets of a carb l28 and a turbo?

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2978513

sorry to ask so my questions but i like asking them and knowing them.

Nope, don't have a dyno sheet, I don't even know off the top of my head who is running a carb + turbo setup right now, since you can get just as much or more power out of a FI setup, and get better mileage as well.

Thanks for the help
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ue9TvnbbTog&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kACvQJhjwMA
twin turbo l28

i want my z to sound like this mean
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RG-reyWQcNE

so what is exactly is a Bee-R revlimiter?

This post has been edited by IamThe280Z on Jun 24 2008, 03:04 PM

That Z racing sound can be achieved with an open-ish exhaust and agressive cam on carbs. Don't know if you can get that on a turbo, but with straight pipes? probably. No idea what a Bee-R revlimiter is, as my rev limiter (as on any carbed Z) is my right foot.

The only thing I've been able to draw out of this thread and what you're asking is that you want the car to sound loud and like a racecar, you can get that with a cam, header, big exhaust and a muffler on an SU equipped car. (I have this setup, people think there's a V-8 in it, it's loud and lopey but only about 175-180hp)

SUs from Ztherapy or Pallnet on a prepped head with a street cam will get you to 200hp, a decent amount of power on a 2100lb car. Bolting on a set of triples to this setup is an additional 20-40 hp that is streetable, going much beyond 250hp on a triples equipped car takes you into a non stop and go daily driver performance realm. SUs are relatively easy to tune and offer decent performance and mileage for a daily driver. Tuning a set of triples is an art that has to be learned, changing needle setups etc to try and keep the things usable in stop and go but still jamming on the power above 3K-4K RPM where they're designed to start making a difference.

If your heart is set on a triple bypass setup there's one for sale on HybridZ.org http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=135515 You buy this and you'd better know how to tune a set of triples to run with that turbo as previosuly mentioned. This is a more aesthetically pleasing setup but at the expense of practicality. EFI is the way to go to run a turbo setup since the electronics do all of the tuning you have to do manually with a set of triples.

What kind of performance are you trying to get out of the car? What other mods are you considering? Most importantly, how much do you have to spend? Some of these decisions make themselves when you look at your pile of expendable dough.

god that z road racing sounded sexy.

*calls dibs on the HZ.org sale*


Agreed with gogriz though, we really need to know your budget and what you want this car to do before we can give you really good advice.



Man, I really want that plenum and carbs....guess I better find a job soon...

I want to graduate to set of Mikuni 44s and I have a job...I also have three kids who will at least watch the WM DVDs I buy on EBay, my 3yr old knows "Daddy's EZ car"...the carbs will wait.

Get the 44PHHs ASAP, they are drying up. Even if I ditch this L engine in a few years for an RB or something, I'm still going to keep the carbs. Worth their weight in gold almost.

I know I know...I keep waiting for a great deal on a set, I need a pretty good deal to push me over the edge.

i still kinda want the car to go fast don't want to get passed by soccer moms.Well i am looking into gutting the interior carpeting and insulation foam or whatever you call it. Put at least one bucket seat(dam they are above 500$ for one seat lol...going with sparco)sabelt harness(likes how they look).i really don't have a budget because this is no short term project more like a long term deal.I want a z thats fast and makes a lot commotion.


44 solex
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-v7v2gUFW4&feature=related

This post has been edited by IamThe280Z on Jun 25 2008, 10:08 AM

Solex carbs are essentially the same as mikunis, but the mikunis are a TINY bit more refined.

If this is a long term project, I would say for now stick with whatever engine setup you get with the car. If you get one that has a L28et swapped into, work with that. If it is an L28e or L28 with carbs, work with that (ie, get more/better carbs, like mikunis). The engine is going to be the single most expensive part of the project, even if you do alot of the work yourself. Get the engine decent, then do everything else, then turn it into a monster.