Date: 05-09-95 (22:26)               Number: 10353
  To: WILLIAM TURNER                 Refer#: NONE
From: DAVE WILLIAMS                    Read: NO
Subj: RE: HERE'S MUSTANG ENGINE      Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
 
-> Can someone please explain to an ignorant Brit, why American engines
-> develop so little hp against volume? Is it due to stringent
-> environmental limits or what???

 HP is only part of the equation.  Americans in general prefer engines
with a wide torque spread low in the RPM range.  This gives good
performance in "real" driving situations, without having to row a small
engine through the gears.  Small engines are perceived as "busy" or
harsh since they work harder for the same output.

 Also, the USA (except for maybe a few isolated areas) has never taxed
or legislated displacement, unlike Europe in general and England in
particular.  Without the artificial limits imposed by law, it's quite
possible your country's development would have been similar to the US'.

 Back during the US' fuel crisis years in the 1970s, Detroit automakers
repeatedly proved larger, lazy motors could deliver better fuel economy
than smaller, harder working motors, due to better volumetric efficiency
(less pumping loss) and lower friction (static friction higher in the
big motor, but less when running due to the lower RPM; friction does not
go up linearly with displacement).




Date: Thu, 20 Apr 1995 22:14:00 +0000
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Engine fire
To: exotic-cars@sol.asl.hitachi.com

-> The Brits are (in)famous for this sort of "cost savings". I didn't
-> know about Astons, but just about every early Lotus left the factory
-> with a similar setup...

German-built Capris also had plastic fuel lines.  The idiots at a local
muffler shop managed to burn through one of mine when they were putting
pipes on it.  What a commotion...



Date: Thu, 18 May 1995 21:55:00 +0000
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Sign...what to do with Ford
To: exotic-cars@sol.asl.hitachi.com

-> hope Ford forces British industry to wake up.  They aren't a stupid
-> people, nor lazy, but, sometimes one does wonder if they are actually
-> "intelligent" when it comes to business.  Still they are smart enough

Part of the problem is the British way of doing business - the division
between "white collar" and "blue collar" is much greater than in the US,
and there's a very definite pecking order among the white collar crowd.
Absentee ownership was also often a factor.

The other major part of the problem is British labor unions, which
adhere much more closely to they way Karl Marx defined them than they do
in the US.  You just *think* UAW has power compared to the Brit
equivalents.  So you wind up with a hidebound management and a listless
workforce, and pretty soon you have problems.

People tend to think of Japanese factories and management as being
rigid, but they don't even come close to the British.  Kenichi Yamamoto
and his "57 Ronin" Wankel team would probably have been inconceivable to
British management.  Heck, they probably were.

Anyway, getting back to the subject, the management/labor problem is why there 
are so few large manufacturers in England, and why most of those are 
perpetually in dire straits.  The British have no lack of talent, though, and 
perhaps the lack of opportunity at large, established companies has worked 
slightly to their favor.  Count up how many CART and F1 cars come out of 
England some time, from little hole-in-the-wall shops.  Companies like TVR, 
Marcos, Morgan, and others have carved out their own niches. 



Date: Fri, 29 Sep 1995 22:37:00 +0000
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: more TRX
To: fordnatics@blob.best.net

My AN fittings for the header tank came in earlier this week.  Duh.
A -6 fitting isn't 3/8", it's 1/4"!  This is the first time I've
actually bought anything sight unseen; either I find what I need in my
parts box, or dig through the local speed shop's pile of rip-off
priced parts.  So all along I'd been off nearly 1/8" on sizes.  My new
-8 parts are in now and fit fine.  Praise Baud, I was Enlightened before
I ordered $200+ of fittings and hose for the oil cooler.

These are Aeroquip push-on fittings, barbed, which go into some of
their fancy hose.  Nothing greatly unusual, except they're barbed at one
end and AN on the other, and they're *cheap*!  They're just the thing
for connecting my heater hoses to the header tank.

I also got two more -4 lines for air bleeds.  They're Teflon and
stainless, fairly rigid, and packaged as 36" brake lines.  Right.  And
I'm using them to vent air bubbles.  Well, they ought to last
practically forever.

I decided to leave the cast iron pump on.  At idle it makes enough
pressure in the block to cause sealing problems with the reverse-flush
filler I used to have on the car.  I didn't feel like removing it to
drill and tap for an air bleed, so I used Mr. Shop Vac and carefully
drilled, reamed, and tapped the pump for a bleeder fitting.  If any cast
iron chips got away, they'll probably dissolve soon enough.  You'd need
something larger than a marble to jam the pump up anyway.

That leaves me with one bleeder line from the radiator, one from the
top of the water pump.  I plugged the bypass nipple on the thermostat
housing and drilled a 3/16 bleed hole at the top of the thermostat.
That will allow enough water flow to operate the thermostat, while the
"bypass" water now comes from the back of the heads via the heater core
and header tank.  It's a weird looking setup.

NPT tapered pipe fittings don't bother me a bit now.  I bit the bullet
and bought a complete set of quality taps *and* the tapered reamers,
which cost more than the taps.  Drill, ream, tap, and assemble with the
fancy Teflon pipe dope.  No weeps so far.  All this presupposes clean,
undamaged threads.  I chase the holes with the appropriate tap, then use
lacquer thinner to clean the threads.  I really need to pick up a set of
NPT dies now, to clean up the male threaded fittings, which seem to get
damaged easily.  Well, I can't be too down on that.  My collection of
fittings has been rattling around in coffee cans for fifteen years
now; I'm planning to fix that Real Soon Now(tm).  Forty cent brass pipe
bushings are two bucks now; I'm going to take *much* better care of my
"stuff" collection than before.

I put the trans temp sender in the remote filter bracket.  This turned
into a marathon session with the milling machine and die grinder.  I was
tickled to death when I finished it, though you'd have to see all the
work up inside to be impressed.  Come to think of it, only another
weirdo like me would be impressed, so never mind.

When I pulled the trans pan off there was a little plastic thingummy
inside, sort of a cross between a fishing bobber and a speedo gear.  I
couldn't find any mention of it in any of my service manuals, though I
found one Chilton's that showed it sort of around the pan area in one of
their crummy exploded views.  I finally found a transmission shop that
was of help:

I walked in holding the plastic part.  The guy says, "You own a Ford
product, right?"

"Uh huh," I replied.

"You just pulled the pan and found that laying in the bottom, right?"

"Uh huh."

"You couldn't figure out where it went, right?"

"Uh huh."  (hey, it's working, why change?)

"That's the plug the factory puts in before they ship the transmissions
to the assembly plant.  When Ford puts them on the engine, they just ram
the dipstick tube in and knock it inside.  It's too big to get sucked up
into anything, so it doesn't hurt anything."

"Uh huh.  Looked like someone had been into this one before, though."

"Oh, yeah, happens all the time.  Last guy who had the pan off didn't
know what it was, so he just put it back in there for the next guy."

"Uh huh."

So that relieved *that* worry, anyway.



Date: Wed, 06 Dec 1995 22:23:00 +0000
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Oil cooler adaptor ring
To: gnttype@buick.monsanto.com

-> for your planes(the Mustang) you borrowed the best, a Rolls Royce
-> Merlin.Unfortunately when you got the manufacturing drawings,Packard
-> who was contracted to build it,couldn't even come close to Rolls
-> Royce's machining tolerances.This from a company that had been
-> bombed

I sense the mighty spiked Boot of the moderator hovering, so this must
be short.  Rolls-Royce had designed and built equipment specifically for
building the Merlin.  The US subcontractors made do by jerry-rigging
whatever equipment they could adapt, make, or salvage, most of it not
even approximately sized for an engine the size of the Merlin.  Not only
that, but they had to do it in weeks, not years.  Allison not only built
fine engines anyway, but made a number of improvements during the run.

There was also a lot of finger-pointing about those blueprints, which
allegedly weren't quite the same as the ones Rolls itself was working
from.  There was later some flamage over the turbochargers, which the
Americans managed to develop and put into mass production.  Most of the
turbos were reserved for US equipment, while the Brits got the bare
minimum.  Yes, in the old days, the Mustangs were the ones with the
turbos...


-> Gulp, as a "boot and spiked glove" European

Ignoring for the moment that Rolls actually built cars in the USA for a
brief period long, long ago, Rolls-Royce is in England.  In 1941, the
Empah had no use for those willy wog metrics, and if you called an
Englishman a "European" he'd probably poke you in the eye and make
comments about your ancestry.

[makes a wild effort to insert some even approximately Buick-related
material into the message]  Did you know the Brits actually produced a
V6 version of the Rover V8 back in the '80s?  Sawed two cylinders off...
I thought I'd seen that movie before...



Date: 12-28-95
  To: MARK MALONE
From: DAVE WILLIAMS
Newsgroup: rec.autos.tech
Subject: Re: New emissions laws take away our cars.

-> On the other hand, the Northstar is simply a world class engine.
-> Cadillac st and has worked it into more models since.  FTW, anybody

 "World class" was Ford's marketing slogan for the US, fwd Escort.  The
Escort was a sleazy piece tin can with an engine that caused them much
grief - 100% recall on the early CVH engines due to head problems.  We
used to joke that "world class" was Ford's way of trying to spread the
blame.

 It's always amusing to come across people that think the term "world
class" is positive.  Of course, GM sort of bit it with "Cross-Fire
Injection."  Who'd want crossfire?  Too bad they didn't come out with
the "Rod Knock Stereo."

Date: Sat, 29 Apr 1995 10:47:00 +0000
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Performance Parts?
To: fordnatics@freud.arc.nasa.gov


-> My question is what's the difference between a "performance" part and
-> a regular? part?

Performance parts are usually chromed or polished, and quite expensive.
Regular parts are usually painted black, and much cheaper.


-> Is there any advantage in getting performanc parts
-> for my '73 F250?  Do such parts exist?

Ford SVO has a 600 cubic inch short block that'd turn your truck into
the Tow Rig From Hell.




Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 21:43:00 +0000
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Seats was (Re: C&C is as vague as usual)
To: autox@autox.team.net


-> the item in question was a tractor seat, which meets the "large and
-> strong enough to seat an adult" part, but not the "such that it could
-> be used as the driver's seat" part.  The last part means exactly
-> that; could you drive the car in it?  If yes, it's okay.  If no, it's
-> not.

When I got my seats reupholstered some years ago, I drove around
sitting on a milk crate with a folded blanket to prevent corrugated
butt.  That doesn't make a milk crate a driver's seat by my definition,
though it meets yours.


->  Sheesh, how hard can it be?

Get used to it.  You make the rules, people will look for ways around
them.  The more rules, the more people are going to look.

Nobody is forcing you to stay on the SEB.  If it distresses you this
much, pass it on to someone else.



Date: Wed, 16 Aug 1995 19:57:00 +0000
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Tobacco Ad Ban?
To: wheeltowheel@abingdon.Eng.Sun.COM


-> What you are talking about sounds a lot like socialism. You would
-> force every team to the same economic situation so that no team
-> suffers from lack of prosperity, thus producing more competitive
-> racing, right?

Um.  I think we have a fundamental communication gap here.  I'd be
happiest with the ultimate capitalistic approach - you want to race,
pay for it out of your own pocket.  *I* do.

Have you followed Smokey Yunick's semi-senile ravings in Circle Jerk
over the last year or so?  He's been screeching for the Feds to step in
and provide government support for stock car racing.  Now, *that* I'd
call socialist.  Eh, comrade, what's wrong with ex-GSA Chrysler K-cars
for NASCAR?  You didn't expect us to give you *new* cars to trash, out
of public funds?  And you guys really need to work on your ratings - the
Neilsens show the mace-and-trident competitions on the Coliseum Channel
are hot on your tail...



Date: Sun, 20 Aug 1995 00:18:00 +0000
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: A short story about racing
To: wheeltowheel@abingdon.Eng.Sun.COM


-> This IS copyrighted material.  It is not to be downloaded, printed,
-> nor in any way reproduced or disseminated.  After reading it you
-> should erase it from your disk.  I will vigorously persue any person
-> who attempts to violate my copyright of this material.

Please remit $3.95 for your article's use of my system resources and my
time spent killing the article.


-> "publication" of the material.  It is presented here for the sole
-> purpose or obtaining a peer review of fellow racers.

You ain't William Campbell Gault, for sure.



Date: Sun, 20 Aug 1995 22:00:00 +0000
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Dave williams response to my short story
To: wheeltowheel@abingdon.Eng.Sun.COM


-> Your response to my posting indicated a maturity level much lower
-> than would be required if you realy are a "Flower Child" as you
-> implied.

Flower Child?  Implied?  Me?  Nosiree Bob, I swore off that "maturity"
stuff years ago.


-> I have been writing for 30 years and my editors feel I write in the
-> style of E. Hemmingway so I do not aspire to write like William
-> Campbell Gault.

Well, don't give up hope yet.  You may improve with practice.


-> I think it is a damned shame that access to the internet can not be
-> restricted by IQ.

Be careful what you wish for; you might wind up as one of the
have-nots.


Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 12:12:00 +0000
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Topeka Protests/Appeals
To: autox@autox.team.net


-> Scotty White, 1991 Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1, Violation of Sections
...
-> underweight pistons.  Competitor refused teardown.  Protest Upheld.

Considering that Chevy dealers normally don't stock LT5 parts, I can
hardly blame the guy.  It'd probably take several days just for him to
get the gaskets to put the thing back together, even with Federal
Express, not to mention the cost.  An LT5 gasket set is several hundred
dollars.

To get a piston out would require a nearly complete teardown and
probably most of a day.  Yeah, that's how you win at the Nats.  You find
people with cars that are expensive or difficult to service, and then
you protest them on something that makes it not worth their while to
fight "guilty until proven innocent."


-> BP 82, Sam Platt, 1969 Chevrolet Corvette, protested by BP 19, Bart
-> Johnson,
...
-> BP 19,119, Bart Johnson, Rick Brown, 1989 Chevrolet Corvette,
-> protested by BP 82, Sam Platt
...
-> BSP 30, Daniel Popp, 1972 Chevrolet Corvette, protested by BSP 139,
-> Vic Sias,
...
-> BSP 30, Daniel Popp, 1972 Chevrolet Corvette, protested by BSP 77,
-> Charlie Shelton
...
-> BSP 99, Phil Currin, 1968 Chevrolet Corvette, protested by BSP 77,
-> Charlie Shelton

Do I see a trend here?

"Push me, shove you."  "Oh yeah, says who?"  "Push me, shove you..."




Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 13:46:00 +0000
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Topeka Protests/Appeals
To: autox@autox.team.net


-> How long have you had this sour grapes attitude? A protester must
-> provide a teardown bond, and if a competitor uses a particular engine
-> builder, such a bond would have to cover the cost of having the
-> engine reassembled by this builder.

So?  You're going to camp out on the runway until UPS brings your
engine back?  It's a street class, I doubt every entry comes in on a
trailer.


-> What would YOU propose? Immunity from protest for anyone with a
-> high-bucks motor?

I'd propose inverting the concept of Street Prepared, ie limiting
chassis mods and making engine mods free.  It would be much easier to
police, and more in line with actual modified street machinery.
Unfortunately not many of the SCCA share my enlightened viewpoint.


-> Constructive input is much preferred in general to whining....

Do you hear a whine?  Maybe your hearing aid needs a new battery.



Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 21:56:00 +0000
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re:  Near-future Cobra I.R.S. -  Futile Speculation
To: fordnatics@blob.best.net

-> Yes, I've seen Bittle's car in person, and I've also seen in print
-> another car. However, those were just bolt-up jobs - no crash testing
-> or integrity/durability testing.

  All hail the holy FMVSS and its servants, the NHTSA.  Amen.

Gee.  Maybe you better not change those wheels and tires out - the did
BBS and BFG submit their products to Ford and the DOT for full
testing?  Probably not.  And that stereo... it might somehow cause the
car's electronic control systems to freak out and cause a terrible
crash.  Yaa, yaa...

Better yet, just sell the car and sit at home, where you only have to
worry about asbestos in the ceiling, CRT radiation from the TV, and
lead-based pigments in the paint.


Date: Sat, 04 Nov 1995 09:02:00 +0000
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Moving the Late Model Vette....
To: AUTOX@autox.team.net


-> I am glad that you are so empathetic to the drivers in BSP. If you
-> are going to whine so loud, why not just whine to have YOUR CAR ONLY
-> classified in HS? Welcome to the real world!!
-> Tom Oxner

Don't be silly, Tom.  If he was the only car in HS, who would he
protest?



Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 23:37:00 +0000
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Turbo mag
To: gnttype@buick.monsanto.com


-> I think turbo mag has become deaf to it's readers... They show
-> someone buying a certain car, and spending 6000.00 in headwork, cam,
-> intake etc... to run mid-low 13's. They think that is the majority of
-> it's readers.

It's quite possible they're right.  Most of their articles are just ads
for boutique shops.  Some guy wheels his new $30,000+ turbocar in, hands
them the credit card, and voila!  With just an exhaust system change and
a new chip, the horsepower is magically bumped from 300 to 450!  The
miracle of techology, oh, yay-us and praise de Lawd!

Uh, yeah.

A friend of mine has a 300ZX twin turbo, and has ordered every catalog
from every applicable place that advertises in Turbo.  I've never seen a
more ridiculous assortment of overpriced trash and outright barefaced
lies.  Yes, with the proper assortment of bolt-ons, he can get 800hp
from his Nissan!  No internal engine work required!  Who needs antique
Buick technology and no-name dweebs like Conley or Duttweiler when you
can just whip out your credit card for REAL IMPORTED JAPANESE HIGH TECH?

WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!  JUST SEND MONEY!  LOTS OF MONEY!  And face
toward Disneyland, and tell Tinkerbell you buh-leeeeeve....


[closed captioned for the humor-impaired]



Date: Fri, 29 Sep 1995 22:37:00 +0000
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: more TRX
To: fordnatics@blob.best.net

My AN fittings for the header tank came in earlier this week.  Duh.
A -6 fitting isn't 3/8", it's 1/4"!  This is the first time I've
actually bought anything sight unseen; either I find what I need in my
parts box, or dig through the local speed shop's pile of rip-off
priced parts.  So all along I'd been off nearly 1/8" on sizes.  My new
-8 parts are in now and fit fine.  Praise Baud, I was Enlightened before
I ordered $200+ of fittings and hose for the oil cooler.

These are Aeroquip push-on fittings, barbed, which go into some of
their fancy hose.  Nothing greatly unusual, except they're barbed at one
end and AN on the other, and they're *cheap*!  They're just the thing
for connecting my heater hoses to the header tank.

I also got two more -4 lines for air bleeds.  They're Teflon and
stainless, fairly rigid, and packaged as 36" brake lines.  Right.  And
I'm using them to vent air bubbles.  Well, they ought to last
practically forever.

I decided to leave the cast iron pump on.  At idle it makes enough
pressure in the block to cause sealing problems with the reverse-flush
filler I used to have on the car.  I didn't feel like removing it to
drill and tap for an air bleed, so I used Mr. Shop Vac and carefully
drilled, reamed, and tapped the pump for a bleeder fitting.  If any cast
iron chips got away, they'll probably dissolve soon enough.  You'd need
something larger than a marble to jam the pump up anyway.

That leaves me with one bleeder line from the radiator, one from the
top of the water pump.  I plugged the bypass nipple on the thermostat
housing and drilled a 3/16 bleed hole at the top of the thermostat.
That will allow enough water flow to operate the thermostat, while the
"bypass" water now comes from the back of the heads via the heater core
and header tank.  It's a weird looking setup.

NPT tapered pipe fittings don't bother me a bit now.  I bit the bullet
and bought a complete set of quality taps *and* the tapered reamers,
which cost more than the taps.  Drill, ream, tap, and assemble with the
fancy Teflon pipe dope.  No weeps so far.  All this presupposes clean,
undamaged threads.  I chase the holes with the appropriate tap, then use
lacquer thinner to clean the threads.  I really need to pick up a set of
NPT dies now, to clean up the male threaded fittings, which seem to get
damaged easily.  Well, I can't be too down on that.  My collection of
fittings has been rattling around in coffee cans for fifteen years
now; I'm planning to fix that Real Soon Now(tm).  Forty cent brass pipe
bushings are two bucks now; I'm going to take *much* better care of my
"stuff" collection than before.

I put the trans temp sender in the remote filter bracket.  This turned
into a marathon session with the milling machine and die grinder.  I was
tickled to death when I finished it, though you'd have to see all the
work up inside to be impressed.  Come to think of it, only another
weirdo like me would be impressed, so never mind.

When I pulled the trans pan off there was a little plastic thingummy
inside, sort of a cross between a fishing bobber and a speedo gear.  I
couldn't find any mention of it in any of my service manuals, though I
found one Chilton's that showed it sort of around the pan area in one of
their crummy exploded views.  I finally found a transmission shop that
was of help:

I walked in holding the plastic part.  The guy says, "You own a Ford
product, right?"

"Uh huh," I replied.

"You just pulled the pan and found that laying in the bottom, right?"

"Uh huh."

"You couldn't figure out where it went, right?"

"Uh huh."  (hey, it's working, why change?)

"That's the plug the factory puts in before they ship the transmissions
to the assembly plant.  When Ford puts them on the engine, they just ram
the dipstick tube in and knock it inside.  It's too big to get sucked up
into anything, so it doesn't hurt anything."

"Uh huh.  Looked like someone had been into this one before, though."

"Oh, yeah, happens all the time.  Last guy who had the pan off didn't
know what it was, so he just put it back in there for the next guy."

"Uh huh."

So that relieved *that* worry, anyway.


Date: 05-09-95 (22:26)               Number: 10353
  To: WILLIAM TURNER                 Refer#: NONE
From: DAVE WILLIAMS                    Read: NO
Subject: Re: HERE'S MUSTANG ENGINE LINEUP 1996

-> Can someone please explain to an ignorant Brit, why American engines
-> develop so little hp against volume? Is it due to stringent
-> environmental limits or what???

 HP is only part of the equation.  Americans in general prefer engines
with a wide torque spread low in the RPM range.  This gives good
performance in "real" driving situations, without having to row a small
engine through the gears.  Small engines are perceived as "busy" or
harsh since they work harder for the same output.

 Also, the USA (except for maybe a few isolated areas) has never taxed
or legislated displacement, unlike Europe in general and England in
particular.  Without the artificial limits imposed by law, it's quite
possible your country's development would have been similar to the US'.

 Back during the US' fuel crisis years in the 1970s, Detroit automakers
repeatedly proved larger, lazy motors could deliver better fuel economy
than smaller, harder working motors, due to better volumetric efficiency
(less pumping loss) and lower friction (static friction higher in the
big motor, but less when running due to the lower RPM; friction does not
go up linearly with displacement).


Date: Sat, 15 Jul 1995 18:13:00 +0000
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: WHATS FORD'S EXCUSE?
To: fordnatics@blob.best.net

-> Hey ya'll, why is it a 351W can only give 300HP/365 lbs?  Occording
-> to N!SS@N their 300ZX 3.0L turbo 5-speed can do 300HP and I believe
-> 320 LBS torque. This is a little engine, ya'll!

Surely it is.

It also has four valves per cylinder, twin turbos, twin intercoolers,
moly coated pistons, exotic ring and valve materials, and develops most
of its power several thousand RPM over the 351W.  A friend of mine has
a 300ZX, and it's a rocket, no doubt about it.  However, while I
tweaking on it, I've had occasion to price some parts.  Did you know
just the two turbos cost as much as a whole 351W crate motor?

The 300ZX ain't shit for power, though.  My everyday-ride Yamaha
(wastegate?  What wastegate?) makes around 120hp out of 40 cubic inches.
For the calculator-impaired, that's 3 horses per cubic inch.  That's as
much horsepower as some of the 302s during the Dark Ages of the 1970s.
You probably wouldn't care to buzz the engine up to 11,000 RPM during
normal driving, however.

The ZX is short on displacement, and makes up for it with technoid
trickery.  However, if Nissan were to punch it out to 5.8 liters, they
could make the same or more power for a whole lot less money, and have
better reliability and mileage too.

Why don't they do this?

Most Americans don't realize that the USA (all of North America, in
fact) has been blessed by the absence of government-mandated
displacement limits or taxes.  In many countries, the difference between
a 2 liter car and a 3 liter car can be a month's pay gone to tax and
registration fees.  In other countries, displacement is regulated by a
car's "type", which is a government-mandated category it must fit into.
Also, in most countries, an automobile is perceived as a luxury instead
of a necessity - Americans tend to live much further from work than
their counterparts overseas.  Large displacement engines are perceived
as "frivolous", while severely-tweaked small displacement motors are
perceived as engineering marvels.