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Cary (tube80z) has been mentioning this idea of the dual ball joint front end off and on for the last couple years. I hadn't really given it too much thought until I autoxed my car and was really lifting the inside rear tire, and Dan (74_5.0L_Z) suggested that the problem might be scrub radius and caster related. I guess the idea is that the outside wheelbase increases significantly enough due to scrub that the car leans over in that direction and the inside rear comes off the ground. Recently this thread popped up talking about swapping front suspensions and it quickly devolved into a pissing match for reasons beyond my comprehension, but it did get me thinking more seriously about the dual ball joint idea. Cary seems to think it's doable with the ball joints in the same plane, and had thought of a modified bumpsteer spacer as a possible way to do it. That got me thinking that it might be easier to just make a square tube knuckle and bumpsteer spacer combo, so that's where I'm at right now. Thinking square tube with simple clevises welded to it for the ball joints, and then taper the front end and have it open and then use shims above and below the tie rod to adjust bumpsteer. I have absolutely no idea how to figure out the spacing on the clevises to minimize scrub and that sort of thing but I'm very interested to see if I can make it work, and to see if it would be as easy as I think it should be.

Hi Folks, maybe its interesting for some of you so I like to share the process on my Z with you. Normally I import cars from JP to Germany but my Z is from the lone star state Texas and find its way to Germany this spring. Little curious story: The last TX owner lived 1mi from Gasmonkey Garage and as you all know they had build a Datsun before last Semi. I think mine was in too bad shape so Richard don't bought it for the build, but anyway.. I bought my car at the 19.03 this year from a Moviecardealer in Berlin and get it into m garage a few days later. Because of oo many other project the car sits in my yard for some weeks before I can start. End of April I striped it down and get it blasted and primed. After That I had startet with some welding jobs, but theres nothing to bad so I will finish that next week and the car cango to the paint shop. This is hot it actually looks: Some test fittings. I also cleaned put the whole engine bay and make everything smooth and nice. The interesting part will follow after the car would came back from the painter in Slate Gray. Following Parts are waiting in my garage for the install after the paint or are in transit: SR20DET with Stock S15 top mounted Turbo, complete handmade 3" exhaust, Apexi Power FC and wiring specialities harness Sparco Seats, Black leather interior with grey stitch, Nardi Steering, New Center Console, Speedhut Gauges, AEM AFR All underneath is black or red powder coated with new PU-Bushes BC Racing Coils and 10x17 and 8,5x17 Japan Racing Wheels with Federal RSR Semi Slicks, complete R33 Skyline Brake System with extra Handbrake Caliper Front Aidam, 240Z Style Bumpers and Fender Flares There are a lot more little modifications, will update more interesting thinks after car is at the paintshop and I can start to put the engine together and do some fabrication. Have a nice Sunday. Alex

I recommend filler after epoxy. Read the following: http://us.ppgrefinish.com/PPG-Refinish/Training/Training-Guides/Custom-Restoration-Guide Even if you don't use PPG products, it's a good resource on the steps from stripping to painting. Another good resource is: https://www.autobody101.com/forums/

@softopz ended up making 300whp and torque was at 280, that was at 6500rpm. I was limited due to my fuel system, it'll be one of the next things upgraded. @Ereschkigal @seattlejester thanks for the feedback, shortly after taking those pictures I ended up pulling the fenders further away from the body of the car in order to lengthen them a bit. I like how they sit a little better, i'll need to see if they hit or pass that body line a bit later today. The non circular flares were bugging me they just didn't look right, ended up cutting them up going to be attempting to make them more circular.

It's been a long time since I've posted anything of significance at HybridZ. I took my Z apart for a turbo upgrade in 2012 then in the middle of the project my wife and I decided to move. After getting settled into the new house, I got distracted with other projects and just never found the time to finish the turbo upgrade. About a year ago found a local tuner/fabricator that was interested in helping me get my Z back on the road. He was mostly a Toyota expert, but he was a superb fabricator and did quality work so I hired him for the project. The turbo I chose was a GTX3576R with a .63 turbine. I heard from a few friends that they thought this turbo was too small, but so far it seems perfect. My old turbo was a T4/T3 hybrid that made 455 rwhp. At that power it was well out of the compressor efficiency map. I wanted a more modern turbo that would improve power under curve and a maybe bit more peak power. All with less boost. Reducing turbo lag was may main goal. I could write a book on the project so I will try to keep it short. Here's a bit about the car as it was in 2012. http://fstrnu.net/z/ The new turbo external size was a bit larger than the T4/T3. I need to find a way to fit it on the original L28ET manifold in addition to adding an external wastegate. The answer was an adapter that used v-band fittings for both the turbine and the wastegate. The below picture was a test fit so you can see the design aspects. The adapter was designed in Solidworks then CnC'd from a brick of steel. Here's a picture before the downpipe was installed. I ceramic coated the adapter, manifold and downpipe. Here's a picture with everything installed. This is the engine as it is today. I added a coolant bypass on cyl 4,5,6 and I added an IAC for idle control. I also removed the AC since I never really needed it and the compressor got in the way of my air cleaner. Oh and the wiring has been tidy'd up since this photo. Overall I could not be happier with the project. The new turbo and the various components have made a big difference in the turbo lag and bottom/mid range power. The car was fast before (11.30 @ 124mph), but it is even better now. I can't wait to get it back to the track for some fun. It's good to be back. -John

Gorilla lugs are really strong and come in a variety of colors.

I think part of the reason I spend so much time here is that I enjoy the spirit of the board. The "there is no best" rule comes to mind. There really isn't, depending on your geographic location, your skill level, your support group, the best is highly variable. Throw in things like the activity and we find a different "best" emerges for each one and at that point there is no best. I think once you grasp that you realize on the other hand, there is no worst, something really might be an option for someone given their walk in life. You apply that to real life and to hate a group of people or to blindly follow another just isn't an option. I love the ridiculously intricate discussions we can have. I even enjoy it when people argue even with me. Maybe not in the moment, as it is hard to look at where someone is coming from, to peel back the red or to calm your heart rate when someone points out you are wrong or has a vastly different opinion, but I think being able to calm down and maybe adopt someone else's perspective for a moment is something I learned on this board and am deeply thankful for. Also you have to realize when people argue with you it means they care, maybe not for you, but they care about the topic enough to take a moment out of their day to point something out. Sometimes it isn't welcome for sure, but I think in the context of the forum where we refer to the FSM, diagrams, charts, tables, and manuals I appreciate that there are people who care who take the time to interject and even spend the time to back up their opinion whether I agree with it or not. Just knowing that there are people who aren't just mindless dolls puts a smile on my face as silly as that may be.

It's been long enough! The car has been on the road for a few years now and I needed to catch up on some maintenance and upgrades this past Friday. On the to-do list was some maintenance, mainly diagnosing a clunky front end, as well as a new speedo cable and the long-awaited LSD and fuel pump install. There were wins and losses on this day! But first, the wins... It's always nice to have friends help out to make things go quicker and today was no different. We got the rear end out without much trouble, it's nice to work on a freshly put-together California car. The LSD is on the left, along with some cruddy old axles I had lying around. Those will be addressed later... While the diff was out, we thought about how to tackle my rear toe issue. The chassis doesn't look like it's ever been hit but something is definitely off. Here are the rear toe numbers from a while back: For the sake of on-car adjustability, we decided to slot the transverse link brace. I calculated, based on rough measurements, that we'd need ~1mm slot so we milled off 2mm. Slotted vs stock And a major win, we're finally at zero thrust angle! Goes to show that it doesn't take much to have the rear toe go out of spec, especially considering a stock Z has no adjustment back there. (The amount of cross-camber is annoying and I plan to find a way to fix that as well) The LSD install went smoothly and we finished up late that night. It's clunkier than my old diff, yet to be determined whether it's the backlash or the u-joints in the axles. There's also a bit more gear whine but not really in cruising RPM ranges. Filled it with Redline GL-5 diff fluid which has friction modifiers in the formulation, the clutches are nice and quiet so far. Acceleration is definitely peppier but it's not quite the 80mph cruiser it used to be. I haven't had a chance to push the LSD much yet but that'll come! Now for the other stuff... After a quick investigation, the clunky front end turned out to be a loose FR gland nut. We snugged up the rest as well. Channel locks did the trick without any drama or disassembly. However, that wasn't the only clunk. Grabbing the wheel at 9 and 3 also revealed a lot of play in the steering. We initially thought it was an inner tie rod but it turns out the play is internal to the steering rack (!). I plan to see whether I can make any adjustments to fix that. If it's too far gone, I have a spare rack I can toss in. If that happens, I'm curious to measure the rack ratios to see if there's a difference considering my spare is a 240Z rack and I have no idea what's in there currently. The speedo cable went in without much fuss but the speedo is still non-functional. Haven't probed further. I did put a matching 19T (white, 3.9 diff) speedo gear into the tranny so the speedo should be accurate once it's actually working. We didn't have time to do anything about the fuel pump so that's been postponed. The major annoyances left with the car is the lack of bump travel causing the suspension to bottom out when it shouldn't and the rev-hang issue. We'll be sectioning a spare set of struts in the coming weeks to deal with the former. Once those are dealt with, the refinement level and enjoyment will go way up.

I really hate you for posting this, and I hate myself for clicking on the thread. I've started assembling the parts I need for hydro, but now I'm calling around sourcing the parts for electric. Thanks for making it a bit easier/harder to choose. 🙄

Thanks for the help, I did get it to fire with this rigged up setup and a extra transistor I had sitting here....however, I went ahead and ordered a 280zx distributor (guaranteed to have a good module), along with a new coil, resistor, plugs and wires. Ignition should be good to go now....on to the carbs. Thanks guys.

The strut setup on these cars is ok, but there's a reason they aren't competitive anymore. No camber gain in roll and the nightmare front hubs (hello, scrub radius called...) are challenges that can't be solved with this arrangement. The Apex Engineering is in my opinion the kit to get. It lets you lower the car and raise the inner arm pickup point to correct your roll center. I've drilled out my stock sub-frame, and that mod combined with the outboard roll center adjuster blocks make for a wizard handling car. You MIGHT be able to graft in a Miata front subframe, but you'll undoubtedly run into some hilarious issues with this. I say go for it, particularly if you've already exhausted the adjustments in the stock configuration! And post photos if you do.

4130 easier to machine than mild steel? Maybe close to the same if annealed which it typically is not. Usually comes normalized which is going to be harder than mild steel, not terrible but definitely harder. If you go to a thinner section it would likely be easier than the large thickness parts. Welding is certainly doable but you need to be more careful with heat zone, ideally post treat to normalize. Choose filler carefully, fit properly, etc. I plan on using pretty much all 4130 on my car on what I add in the cage, floors, etc. It is stronger if treated correctly and can be lighter at the same strength if you go thinner wall. For example I'll use 1-1/2" .095 tubing in the cage where you would normally use .120 wall to get a similar or maybe a little better strength and a lighter part ~20%. But you have to be careful not to make it brittle or soften things up to the point of mild steel strength with the thinner section which is then weaker. And it is MUCH more expensive. Not insane but substantially more for material. 4130 is good for high performance thin walled structure type applications. Any of the energy transfer parts like hubs/axles look at 4340 or even 300M is best unless you get into some of the new "wonder alloys" and proper heat treat. 300M isn't stronger than 4340 natively, it just allows you to heat treat to a higher level without getting brittle which is how you get a much stronger part. 4130 might be a good option but cold rolled would likely be fine for most applications. The thicknesses you are showing here are plenty IMO. I'd look at bracing and structure a bit rather than throwing mass at the parts. I'll bet that it could be done thinner and still keep plenty of strength even in mild steel. That saves money and weight. 4130 would be much thinner. Generally you can get more strength three ways: mass stronger materials better design/engineering The second two are much better for performance. Design is free other than the time to do it which in the business world means money. But only costs on the initial setup, free on everything after that, maybe even cheaper if done right. Materials - cost is higher raw cost and often higher fabrication/heat treat/procedures. You just have to weigh out what it's worth to you or whoever is going to be buying it. Not trying to offend here, some of that is my opinion but based on facts and how things are done in higher performance applications. Every build on here is done differently and one of the things I really appreciate and enjoy on this forum is the tact that is generally afforded. Everyone's vision and budget is different and there is room for all of that here.

Well, I have been regularly working on the car since my last post....just haven't posted in a while because it feels like I am spinning my wheels and not getting much done. I managed to finish the strut tower bars and sway bar mount reinforcements, and completed the modifications to the firewall to mount the Tilton master cylinders: Finished the structural modifications to the rear of the car for the fuel cell cage to drop in. Just have to re-skin the framework with sheet metal: And, spent some time welding up the assorted cutouts and holes from the bumpers, OEM exhaust, marker lights, antennas, and other items I won't be using. That's pretty much it. Feels like a lot of time invested over the past month or so without much progress. Thanks for looking.

The owner of S/N005 sent me this video. Xtreme Cylinder Heads CNC porting. I have no idea why the video is giant. I uploaded it directly to the post Video.MOV

Where to start? There is so many possibilities, I'm sure I can come up with a few for you but I'll start with this one, this is a mod I wish the factory would have done, there would have been a lot less rust in the rear of the Z's'. I just welded a 4" lip to the rain gutter on both sides, now instead of water pooling on the back deck lid it runs right off.

technique is way more important than electrode choice in tig welding. Establish your puddle, then start moving the torch. keep arc TIGHT. Feed in filler at appropriate increments, and don't stop the torch for too long otherwise you'll put too much heat into the part. A million billion times more tricky than it sounds.

At this point the only things that needed to be taken care of before the 1st drive was the bleeding of my clutch & brakes. With the help of my lovely girlfriend that was quickly knocked out. My goal was to drive my car before 2018 came. Motul 8068HL RBF 600 DOT-4 was used for my brakes & clutch. I also with switched my transmission fluid out to 50305 MT-90 75W90 GL-4. Now its the day of Christmas Eve. After double checking every nut & bolt I lowered the car down from the jack stands. Then I warmed the car up & began to adjust the tune. So I could actually attempt it's 1st drive. With the tune roughly adjusted, the car was ready to take out. Would it drive?..... or will I fail to meet my goal?....... Well I places my phone on a tripod & to record it either way...... Thankfully for me the car ACTUALLY DROVE!!!! There's still a ton of tuning left to do but I finally was able to DRIVE my car for the 1st time! I'm by NO means a tuner but I'm gong to give a try. I understand the drive isn't a very exciting for most but this was a huge accomplishment for me. I've included the videos below. This was a huge update! Sorry I wasn't able to release this update done than I did. It should be well worth the wait IMO. Thanks to everybodyfor all support & following the build! Stay tuned. https://youtu.be/DcMBSUcZv90 https://youtu.be/ChwRHIjSmJs https://youtu.be/TwGjmifHZ28