Spannerhead Dot Com

For some reading on the more esoteric aspects of cars and what makes them go, check out the following links, all of which I’ve learned from and greatly enjoyed:

• The Autozine Technical School. Covers a huge array of topics and seems to be kept fairly current. I’m particularly fond of their discussion of engine balance and the differences between engine configurations (I4, V6, H6, V8, etc) with respect to engine smoothness.
• AnimatedEngines.com. Features cheeky little animations of various types of engines, and not just internal combustion ones at that. In fact, I’d say the non-IC engines are the more fascinating for their complexity and ingenuity.
• RotaryEngineIllustrated.com. Co-founded by the late Blake Qualley, something of a hero in the rotary community, this site’s animations are pretty polished, and showcase the operation of the Wankel engine from many different perspectives.

Hope you enjoy and benefit from the sites as much as I have. From that last one, click on the jump below to view a particularly noteworthy animation of the recently-axed RX-8’s RENESIS rotary engine:

Watch the clip!

Let’s clear the air. After ages participating in car communities of many different makes and models, online and otherwise, I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no more contentious issue than the idea of doing a cross-make engine swap; in other words, of swapping into a particular car an engine from a different make.

Examples abound and usually, but not always, involve dropping some flavor of American V8 into a lightweight or otherwise desirable import body:

• Small-block Chevy V8 into RX-7
• Ford V8 into Mazda Miata
• SBC into Jaguar XJ6 or XJS
• Toyota 1JZ into Datsun Z-car

For what it’s worth, it’s not a new phenomenon—professional tuning outfits and even OEMs have been splicing disparate powerplants and chassis for donkey’s years. The AC Cobra, De Tomaso Pantera and Ultima GTR have rightly become the stuff of legend; the cars may have had their flaws, but without the easy availability and modularity of the engines (and the ingenuity of the designers), the aforementioned cars wouldn’t have seen the light of day. More than that—the engine and body each supplied something the other lacked and created cars that were more than the sum of their parts.

So what say you? Is a cross-make engine swap acceptable, and if so, under what circumstances? Is the union between factory engine and chassis sacrosanct; that character inviolable? And if you would never, ever, desecrate a car by shoehorning an engine of a different persuasion under the hood, what about another engine of the same make—say, a BMW V8 into an E24 6-series, or a Nissan RB26DETT into a 240Z? Do you take a stand for a car’s purity, or simply choose the best tool for the job?

Here’s the situation. I own three cars: my BMW daily driver, the family workhorse minivan and my project car, pictured above (it’s the only picture I presently have). It’s a 1972 Datsun 240Z. And it resides in my parents’ garage, 90 minutes away.

Here are the facts about it:

• My dad bought it new in ’72, and gave me the keys as a college graduation present in late ’01. It’s something of a family heirloom, so selling it is out of the question.
• Part of the reason he gave me the keys was that I enjoyed working on it so much. Before the passing of the baton, I’d taught myself to rebuild and synchronize the twin SU carburetors, adjust the valve clearances, and do a full tuneup. I’d replaced both the brake and clutch master cylinders as well as the rear drum brake cylinders, and removed the ancient and inoperative dealer-installed A/C system. I love tinkering with the old 2.4l SOHC inline-6, and the car’s electrical system wiring diagram spans, in its entirety, a whopping two pages—meaning the car’s electrical system is admirably simple to diagnose and fix. And not made by Lucas.
• The car needs a full down-to-the-metal restoration. The passenger side floor pan is rusted through, the battery tray is eaten away, the firewall has holes in it, and I can push my finger through what’s left of the rocker panels. It’s pretty far gone, and my only reason to think the car isn’t destined for the scrap heap is the fact that I’ve seen 240Zs completely restored from being even farther gone than mine is. The body style was popular in its day, had a long 8-year model run, and replacement panels are readily available. And I have faith in miracle-working powers of good body men.
• The engine quite possibly needs an overhaul, if not total rebuild. Some years ago, due to a combination of circumstances, I ran the engine with zero oil pressure for about 3-4 minutes, and it’s never been quite the same since. If nothing else, it probably needs the mains replaced and cylinder bores honed. Of course, none of this is terribly difficult with the engine out of the car, which it will be during the body’s restoration.

So here’s the question: In addition to restoring it, what should I do with it? There are a number of possibilities:

1. Keep it as stock as possible. Given that, as noted above, the car is something of an heirloom, there’s a certain appeal in leaving the car “numbers matching,” or at least ensuring the body’s and engine block’s serial numbers match up, even if I do install some aftermarket bits like headers or uprated suspension and wheels.
2. Install an L28 (2.8l iteration of the 240Z’s engine) with either triple Weber carbs, or keeping the stock SUs. Click here to view an example of that combination in action. The power bump over the L24 would be healthy, and the setup wouldn’t have the complexity of a turbo, but would have the downside that the engine wouldn’t be original to the car.
3. Drop in and tune an L28ET, the factory turbocharged version of the Datsun/Nissan L-series engine. Here’s an excellent video of that setup. It’s a fairly straightforward swap; the motor mounts and drivetrain bits match up, the only custom fabrication required would be the engine management and peripherals like the exhaust and intake piping.
4. Go nuts and install a completely different engine, like a small-block Chevy V8, SR20DET (Nissan 4-cylinder turbo), RB25DET (Nissan 6-cylinder turbo), 1JZ-GTE (Toyota 6-cylinder turbo) or Mazda rotary (not sure if this has ever been done). Advantages include the cool/interest factor and power potential; challenges are legion and include just about everything you can imagine, from sourcing an engine in the first place to all the custom adaptation required.

Any thoughts? I’m leaning toward Project Path No.1, but the lure of boost is difficult to resist. Whatever the case, when the car finally arrives and I begin tearing into it, barring any “unforeseen acquisitions,” the Z will officially be the first Spannerhead.com Project Car™. Stay tuned.

Editor’s note: This post is Part 1 of an ongoing series chronicling my efforts toward the restoration of my 1972 Datsun 240Z, originally my father’s. Read the other installments here:

• Part 23: Gutting the Interior
• Part 22: The Teardown Begins
• Part 21: …And the Engine Comes Out
• Part 20: Treasure Hunting
• Part 19: Beginnings
• Part 18: VIN Discoveries
• Part 17: The Bad News
• Part 16: On The Road
• Part 15: Getting It Back On The Road
• Part 14: It Lives!
• Part 13: Restoring the Fuel System, Part I
• Part 12: Meat on the Wheels
• Part 11: Inspiration (Sort Of)
• Part 10: Carbs’ Return
• Part 9: First Triad Z Club Meet
• Part 8: Wheel Work
• Part 7: Tactical Changes
• Part 6: Little Things
• Part 5: Coming Home
• Part 4: The Rollout
• Part 3: Confessions of a Poor Car Enthusiast
• Part 2: Opening the Tomb

Well, that answers that.

Autoblog reports the Mazda rotary hasn’t been shelved, like I had feared, although it seems to be in a sort of cryogenic suspended animation:

Mazda execs have apparently confirmed that engineers are working on a more efficient and more powerful version of the Wankel. While the project was technically back-burnered during the economic downturn, the research wasn’t canned outright.

The “more efficient and powerful version of the Wankel” is presumably the 16X, the long-awaited longer “stroke” (read: torquier) successor to the prolific 13B, a variant of which has been installed in every top-of-the-line Mazda sports car since 1986.

Unfortunately, the report goes on to point out:

A rotary does pair well with an extended-range electric vehicle platform, however, as the high-revving nature is perfect for turning a generator. While that may be a far cry from the low-slung RX-8, it’s at least reassuring to know that the engine design could have a future.

Again, yes and no. While it would be gratifying on some level to know that Felix Wankel’s internal-combustion epiphany wouldn’t be utterly tossed into the dustbin of history, being relegated to some sort of “prop” for an up-and-coming alternative propulsion technology just seems, well…demeaning to an engine configuration with so much character and untapped potential—in standalone, gasoline-burning form.

In my perfect world, Mazda would build a new front-engine, rear-wheel-drive sports car and a high-end sports sedan around the 16X, their development of the rotary having cracked its fuel consumption and low-end torque issues. The automotive press would hoist the new pair of models on their collective shoulders, rhapsodizing that Mazda had finally found the perfect engine to complement their peerless chassis tuning, and buyers would flock to Mazda showrooms in droves. The unexpected success would at last convince other manufacturers to give the Wankel a fresh look, and Mazda would license the technology to another automaker or two. The engine wouldn’t take over the world, so to speak, but would perform a sort of Apple-in-the-late-’90s-style comeback, slowing gaining legitimacy and a sort of non-conformist cool (more than it already has, that is) on the way to establishing a secure beachhead in the market.

To put it mildly, that’s a bit much to extrapolate from this latest confirmation that the rotary is not, in fact, dead. But I have a feeling my pipe dream is shared by more than a few rotary enthusiasts out there.

Instrument clusters. Countless design hours go into the look and feel of these things, and yet, among the pantheon of automakers, their styles diverge so wildly. Every company seems to have its own interpretation of the way the car’s vital statistics should be displayed, and each one strikes its own balance between style and substance. It takes a deft touch to combine clarity with a dash of visual appeal, and it’s the area of car design where the tug-of-war between sober functionality and trendy graphics is perhaps most clearly on display (pun intended).

As something of an ergonomics nerd (if such a thing exists), they fascinate me. They’re the area of the car we observe most often while driving, so it stands to reason their layout and readabilty would weigh pretty heavily on our impression of the car we’re driving. And in the midst of my observations of an admittedly-limited cross section of the instrument cluster universe, I’ve developed a running list of preferences, a subjective and objective wish list of things I like to see when I glance down from the road:

1. Pale or green lighting. BMW supposedly did a study in early in their modern life as a global company where they determined that amber lighting was optimal for the cluster, in that it allows the eye to transition most easily between the world outside and the information displayed on the instruments. Be that as it may, I’ve always held to the color theory that red or amber lighting simultaneously conveys either an angry/intense emotional tone, or a warm/sleepy one—neither of which are emotions I want to pick up on when I look at my car’s gauges. So as much as I’ve liked other aspects of my current BMW or my old Audi, I could have done without the color of their lighting. Conversely, I’ve found that pale or green instrument lighting has a couple of significant advantages when it comes to cluster illumination. Observe that most street signs or store lights are lit with a pale shade, or green hue, and lighting the instruments with a similar color range makes them feel like natural extensions of the outside environment. My mind switches effortlessly between outside and inside, without having to re-compute for color. Also, the impressions given by the color are cool, alert, precise and calm—exactly what I want to feel behind the wheel.
2. A tachometer at least as prominent as the speedometer. This is especially important in cars equipped with a manual transmission. The relative size of the instruments communicate pretty clearly the car’s priorities—if the speedo dwarfs the tach, it’s evident the designers felt having a handle on the engine speed was something of a lesser priority to their target audience than knowing if they’re doing, say, 17 over on I-95. And given that the more connected one feels with one’s car, the more important it is to know just how fast the contraption under the hood in spinning, I just can’t relate to the slice of the buying public, or the designers who cater to them, who think that’s irrelevant information. A wonderful example of an automaker prioritizing in the right direction has been Mazda, with their RX-7, who for all but two years (’84-’85) placed the oversize tach front and center in the instrument cluster. Nicely done.
3. Thin needles. This one is a bit nit-picky, perhaps, but few will argue that thin needles just makes the cluster feel more precise. It’s easier to tell at a glance if the needle is pointing at, say, 57 mph rather than the range from 55-59 mph, as would be the case with a chunkier needle. The angle of the a thin needle is slightly more apparent as well, which is often all we see when we glance quickly at the cluster.
4. Lots of increments between numbers. This dovetails a bit with the previous preference in that it’s one of those things that just makes a given gauge feel more precise. With lots of hash marks between numbers, the gauges look like precision Swiss watches as opposed to cartoony wall clocks. The ’86-’92 Toyota Supra actually took a step backward in this regard during its mid-cycle refresh: The ’89-’92 cluster eliminated the gradations between numbers that were present on the instruments of the ’86-’88 cars, and as a result the later cars’ gauges feel more empty, arbitrary, cheap. One hash mark per 2 mph or 100 rpm minimum, please.
5. Lots of instrumentation. Give me lots of information; the more gauges the better. Porsche has been an admirable example of this for ages—their 911 has long had oil pressure, oil temperature and a voltmeter in addition to the standard tach, speedo and water temp dials. As far as I’m concerned, you can never be too informed about your car’s mechanical state.
6. Linear gauges. What do I mean by this? Let me give you a negative example: Most engine temperature gauges these days are little more than idiot lights—they rise with engine temperature to a predetermined position and stay there through all the engine’s actual temperature fluctuations, short of truly overheating. They’re weighted, in effect, to stay in a particular position, and as such communicate less information to the driver about what the engine is actually doing. I really do want to know whether the engine is 185° or 189°; it informs the way I treat the car; it helps in diagnosing running issues; and again, it makes me feel more connected to the car.

What say you? What instrument cluster features have you come to appreciate?

I really hope I’m reading this wrong.

In their August issue, Car and Driver reports (emphasis mine):

Only 1134 Mazda RX-8s were purchased here in 2010. The lack of interest means that Mazda will probably shelve its rotary engine later this year. But weep not, rotorheads, because salvation is at hand. […]

The Audi A1 E-Tron, a concept car revealed at last year’s Geneva auto salon, is a showcase of rotary possibilities. Like practically every future-think demonstration vehicle, the E-Tron is electrically propelled, in this case by a 101-hp AC motor driving the front wheels. To forestall range anxiety when the 12-kWh lithium-ion battery pack peters out after 30 or so miles of city driving, there’s an onboard alternator located between the rear wheels. Enter the rotary: A 254-cc, single-rotor Wankel engine provides the power to generate up to 15kW of electrical energy, stretching total range to 155 miles on one battery charge and one 3.2-gallon tank of gasoline.

Except…it’s not really the same. Nothing against the Audi per se, but as any rotary enthusiast will tell you, relegating the engine to secondary duty providing power for an electric motor may make some sense from an efficiency standpoint, but it’s a gross waste of the engine’s potential, character, and just seems, well, undignified. Better to go out in a blaze of glory like the manner in which the FD RX-7 departed our shores in ’95 rather than carry on in some kind of nursing-home existence as the “backup” to the method of propulsion du jour.

I don’t know. A first-generation RX-7 was my first project car, so I’ve been a rotorhead from way back, and I’ve been simultaneously saddened by the fact that the engine never caught on, and heartened by Mazda’s dogged devotion to it. The wording of the Car and Driver article is a bit ambiguous, and leads me to believe that they have some kind of inside tip that Mazda has decided to cancel their long-awaited overhaul of the rotary concept, the 16X (shown below).

There are a number of reasons (of varying degrees of validity) the rotary never really caught on. Many of them are misconceptions borne out of ignorance, or the negative reputation, somewhat unfair at this point, the engine developed in its infancy, when the kinks were still being worked out. A few of them are more difficult to dispel, though, among them criticisms of the engine’s poor fuel economy and lack of low-end torque. Mazda’s 16X was specifically designed to address both of those issues with the first-ever clean sheet redesign of their Wankel engine. The larger rotor diameter effectively increases the engine’s “stroke,” greatly improving torque, and changes to the port design and engine management, coupled with the aforementioned rotor optimization, cut fuel consumption considerably.

I just hope I’m misinterpreting the Car and Driver article’s wording, and that Mazda is in fact continuing to inch the engine closer to production. I know it’s not as fashionable as, say, a hybrid or pure electric system, but the engine is Mazda’s heart and soul, their primary claim to uniqueness, and is one of the few really different pieces of core automotive technology out there.

Is Saab back for good?

After GM decided to divest themselves of the company in late 2009 as part of their restructuring program, the Swedish automaker was rescued in early 2010 by the Dutch firm Spyker in a truly 11th-hour deal. Despite Spyker’s lack of financial muscle compared to GM, I had high hopes Saab would regain more solid footing under their auspices. Especially with the long overdue release of the second-generation 9-5 (by all accounts a very good car, if not the automotive equivalent of a killer app), I started wondering whether a Jaguar-in-the-’90s-style renaissance was in the works.

Unfortunately, Saab’s problems today are different than Jaguar’s were back then. The British company’s main failings were on the manufacturing efficiency and quality control fronts, two areas that their then-new owners, Ford, were amply able to help them address. Jaguar never suffered from a lack of distinctiveness, and their basic design and engineering had always been on par with the standard-bearers in their cars’ categories. But those are precisely the two main issues facing Saab today. Saab needs make a car that can hang with a BMW 3-series, Lexus IS or Infiniti G, and they need to distinguish themselves from their competition (something GM’s platform sharing antics did not help). Accomplishing those two things would help the brand win converts beyond just the diehard loyalists, or those who define themselves first and foremost as nonconformists.

All that said, in spite of the competence of the new 9-5 (pictured above and at top) Spyker couldn’t do much with the Swedish company, and put Saab up for sale. And yet again, on the verge of liquidating their assets and shuttering their factories, a pair of buyers emerged, in this case the Chinese firms Youngman and Pang Da.

Here’s hoping they pull through. If they do eventually go under, the automotive landscape will be a bit less unique for the disappearance of the quirky, and in many ways pioneering, automaker.

Saab has been at the vanguard of a number of automotive innovations; just to name a few: wastegate-controlled turbocharging, coil-on-plug ignition, and my personal favorite: the variable compression engine. Unfortunately, with that last advance, they lacked the capital to fully develop what could have been a game-changer, a real breakthrough that would have given them technical distinctiveness and leadership, in addition to all the little peripheral idiosyncrasies they maintain.

On another personal note, as much of a nonconformist as I like to think I am, I’ve never been a huge fan of the brand, mainly because their entire model range is front-wheel-drive. There’s just no way to achieve a well-balanced, classically fun-to-drive car with that mechanical configuration. It’s unfortunate, really, since Saabs are generally very handsome, and manual transmissions are offered on most cars in their lineup—two big positives.

If nothing else, this post allows me to coin what I will call Spannerhead’s 1st Law of Automotive Blogging: “You can’t call yourself a true automotive blogger until you’ve written a post about a Swedish automaker.”

So at least I’ve arrived, even if Saab hasn’t quite yet.

Let’s get these out of the way, right up front.

Below are some common mishandled car terms that can provoke a raised eyebrow when they pop up on the car boards. Yes, I know, several of them are colloquial terms for the actual parts they’re referring to, and I recognize the intent behind their use, in many cases, is not deliberate inaccuracy, but lack of knowledge or just laziness. But there’s no harm in a friendly re-alignment every now in then, is there? Besides, I’d rather the incorrect term not become the “correct” one though frequent misuse, as has happened with far too many words in our language already.

So behold, the convergence of car and grammar nerd-ery:

1. Unless you’re interested in a set of three-piece CCWs or BBS LMs, you don’t want a set of aftermarket rims. Nope. You want wheels. Rims are the edge of the wheel that makes contact with the tire bead; wheels are the whole thing. No, you do not want some phat 19″ rims for your sweet ride, you want some killer 19″ wheels. Or, even better, some 17-inchers.
2. What’s under the hood of your car isn’t a motor. It’s an engine. A device which internally converts heat energy into motion is an engine; a device which takes energy (such as electricity) from an external source and converts it into motion is a motor. If you drive a Nissan Leaf, you’re exempt from this one. And I pity you.
3. Before you come on the boards and announce to everyone that you want to add an aftermarket cold-air intake (or CAI) to your car, you might want to check your stock airbox. Chances are that it already draws cold air via a snorkel from behind the bumper or one of the headlights. What you most likely mean to say is that you want to replace your factory air filter with a cone filter, because that’s what your buddy who works at Pep Boys said was the first thing to do and would get you “into the 15s.” And because you think the chrome on that Weapon-R intake would look crazy tight under your hood, broceratops. Have fun sucking hot engine bay air through a less-than optimized intact tract.
4. Better men than me have railed against this one for years, but the damage is done: The components at all four corners of your car that attenuate the up-and-down motion transferred to the car body after the wheel contacts a road imperfection and the spring transmits the energy are not shock absorbers. Yes, they’re almost universally called that, but it doesn’t accurately describe their function. They don’t absorb the shock of impact; the tire and spring do. A better moniker would be dampers, in that they dampen the unibody’s movement in response to a bump on the road. But as I said, this one’s a lost cause; 99.9% of the automotive crowd is stuck on shock absorber. So I’ll just roll with this one and bow to the will of the masses.

Not giving up on the other ones, though. Stand with me!

Peace.

No, this isn’t another Anthony Weiner post. If I never read another story referencing that poor sap’s internet escapades, it’ll be too soon. What I’m talking about is the forward shift of the Audi B-platform’s (A4’s) front wheels, illustrated above. It may be subtle, but look at the width of the fender in between the back of the wheel arch and the beginning of the front door. On the newest A4, the B8, shown at right, that little span of metal is noticeably wider than on the B7 (at left), and the front overhang, between the front of the wheel arch and the nose of the car, is obviously shorter.

Most car styling evolves in much more drastic ways from generation to generation, you say; is it really such a big deal? In a word: Yes. You know how financiers and consultants are always looking for that little bit of overlooked information in the industry they cover (or even outside their area of specialty) that will be the harbinger of a larger movement of capital; the beginning of a trend; the inside tip; the pebbles that start the landslide? You get the idea. I believe the slight forward shift of the A4’s front wheels is the sign that Audi will actually achieve something they’ve been pursuing for 30 years: Parity with BMW in the minds and hearts of enthusiast drivers.

Audi has been the odd man out among the big three premium German automakers, nipping at the heels of BMW and Mercedes-Benz for years, carving out their own engineering niche in the form of their signature quattro AWD system. But despite the brilliance of that system, or the excellence of their engines (especially their 20-valve 5-cylinder of the early-mid ’90s), or the fine-tuning of their cars’ chassis, Audis suffered from an inherent limitation of the quattro system: As designed, it required the entire engine to overhang the front axle. This presented a formidable obstacle to overcome when it came to balancing the cars’ masses (the engine being the most significant), a critical part of achieving nimble and enjoyable handling. Imagine trying to thread a shopping cart with a 12-pack of soda duct taped to the front of the basket through an obstacle course, and you have an idea of what Audi has always been up against when it came to refining their cars’ handling. Their chassis engineers were every bit as good as their German competitors’, but they started with a handicap, so to speak.

And this was reflected in tests by publication after publication. All spoke of understeer at the limit, an inescapable nose-heavy feeling, and a reluctance to rotate intuitively. Audi tried what they could to reduce the weight over the nose—aluminum blocks for their post-20V engines, the shorter block of a V6 versus an inline configuration, and even aluminum fenders, introduced on their B7 S4. All of it helped, but none of it could really bring Audi to a place where they could tell enthusiasts, without crossing their fingers behind their backs, that their cars were as well-balanced and tossable as those from their rivals in Munich.

However, with the latest A4, the B8, introduced in 2008, Audi has finally taken steps to rectify the imbalance. As illustrated below, the red axle shaft and steering rack represent their traditional position, from the B2 through the B7 platforms. The front axles couldn’t advance forward past the clutch or torque converter, by virtue of the fact that they were connected by a bulky differential that had nowhere to go except aft of the bellhousing area:

The blue axle shaft and steering arrangement is the B8’s. Audi has finally applied themselves and figured out a way to rearrange the mechanical organs so the front axle can be pushed forward, greatly improving weight distribution, and having the side effect of allowing the steering rack to be relocated to its present position, improving geometry and steering feel. The front/rear weight distribution, which used to be stuck in the 65/35 range, can now move closer to 55/45, with the ideal 50/50 on the horizon. The 12-pack can be effectively moved rearward in the cart. They’ve done it. The car’s masses can be much better-balanced, and BMW’s reign as the king of impeccable-handling cars will soon crumble; I’ve no doubt. Oh sure, they’ll still make handling superstars, but they won’t be the only kid on the block any more.

I realize this may be old news to some of you, but I think about it every time I see a B8 A4, and as an Audi buff, it just makes me feel good to finally see them reeling in their Bavarian competition once and for all.