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Recognizing that this is a six year old thread....I can share my own personal experience with the Carbotech pads. I ran them on my car for 3 years and was relatively happy with them. Mostly track use, with occasional street driving. Good fade characteristics under hard use, and I don't really remember that much brake noise when street driving (but they do produce a lot of brake dust). Since your car is mostly street use with occasional track work, another good pad to consider is the Porterfield R4-S. I've had good luck with Porterfield front and rear; very predictable and great wear characteristics. AP114 is the pad size for S30s: https://porterfield-brakes.com/product/ap114/

Nice tip regarding this particular model wiper motor and part number...thanks for that! The car's looking great -- amazing attention to detail. 👍👍

OHHHHH NOOOOOOOOO....that sucks, Stony!! The car looks seriously hurt; but assuming that you're ok. 😥 If you're planning to build another Z, I guarantee you that your HybridZ brothers will be wanting to help with replacement parts.

To answer your original question…no, you really can’t. You didn’t state which diff you have; but assuming it’s an R180 or R200, the rear cover is an integral component of the differential mounting. Even assuming you could hold the diff in place with a jack while you try to remove the mustache bar and rear transverse link, it’s just not practical to do it that way. Do you have the FSM for your car? If not, you can download them free at: http://www.xenonzcar.com/s30/fsm.html Hope this helps.

Looking good, Joe. Will you be converting all the exterior lighting bulbs to LED (like you did in the dash)? I can PM you specific part numbers for each lens, if you'd like. Although there's a ton of choices out there, I think the Sylvania brand of automotive LED bulbs are some of the best available after chatting with a couple of "industry experts".

Aydin, question regarding your front sway bar drop-down mounts....did you fab your own, or buy them off-the-shelf? And how much do they drop the sway bar position vs stock mounting? Thx!

Lovely work! Excited to see the progress.

Aydin, the series 1 cars had a shorter driveshaft IIRC, due to different diff mounting location. They also used a "straight" (i.e., non-curved) transverse link behind the diff. What did you do vis-a-vis the mustache bar when you swapped the R200 for the R180? I suspect that may be the root cause of your issue. (The RT-style forward mount should not be an issue either way.) Yes, the half-shafts are essentially perpendicular to the longitudinal axis formed by the driveshaft and differential (on cars later than Series 1). Hope this helps you get it sorted.

Link to Clark's RC calculator, for ease of reference: https://forums.hybridz.org/files/file/34-s30-rc-calculator/

That's some beautiful jewelry!!! Really impressive work there. 👍👍

Nope....good explanation. How much caster are you shooting for, if you don't mind me asking? I'm guessing that remaking your steering rack adapters is a lot easier than making custom steering knuckles, as long as you can maintain clearance between the rack adapters and engine peripherals? One thing I found when adding adjustable steering arms/knuckles and adjustable tie rod ends...using offset bump-steer spacers gave me extra clearance between the tie rod ends and the rims. Kind of like thick wheel spacers, without all the negative impacts of using thick wheel spacers. Without the offset, I would have had significant interference between the tie rod ends and my rims (15" diameter), like you described in your option #3 above. T3's new "evolved" design even has multiple mounting positions to tailor the amount of offset to one's specific needs. I think I've got some spare 3/4" bumpsteer spacers (plain straight/non-offset) lying around -- you're welcome to them for the cost of shipping. LMK. Thanks for the additional info!

Bummer, Clark…sorry to hear all that. You do one thing, and it affects ten other things. And the more custom you make it, the worse it gets! ☹️ At your convenience, would you mind elaborating a little on the control arm and steering geometry being “wrong”? (Causes, planned fixes, etc?) Good luck with all the sorting!

Wow, that is some really impressive custom work! Well done, Sir (and thank you for sharing!!). If cost-effective, I could easily see you filling a niche market need, as Clark suggested.

Off topic, but I'd be interested to see some more pics of that sway bar setup. Can't say I've ever seen that setup on the rear of a Z car. Strange chassis buckling for sure, from your pictures; but fixable. Bring it to a chassis shop for measuring and straightening (if necessary).

You might have more success if you post this in the "Parts Wanted" section: https://forums.hybridz.org/forum/73-parts-wanted/ If no one here has any available, they are available all over FB Marketplace and eBay. You can also purchase them new/refurbed from several vendors (ZCarDepot, etc). T3 even offers some slick bolt-in CV axles that are remove and replace for the original half-shafts: https://technotoytuning.com/nissan/260z/long-nose-r180r200-cv-axles-240260280z

Cary/Randall- I think that was likely my fault. My apologies; but many thanks for fixing it. Cheers, John

Oh man….that’s a huge bummer, Ben. Glad you’re ok, and the underlying structure’s ok — but it’s still a bummer to see. How long are you expecting repairs to take? Curious what kind of dyno was used? Glad to hear you’re happy with the new motor. Don’t hesitate to ask if you’re needing bits & pieces for the rework.

Got it. Something for your consideration…IMO, that style thick-spoke wheel often “appears” to have less offset (ie, shallower dish) than many other wheels designs of the same offset. Unless you’re set on keeping those Rotas, you could consider a different wheel of zero offset and achieve that look you’re striving for. Food for thought… Another option to help with the fender clearance issue — more negative camber on all four corners.

Sorry, I may be misunderstanding what you’re trying to achieve. Do you want a look that has a deeper dish or a shallower dish? Positive offset gives you a shallower dish, which is what I thought you were hoping to achieve. My bad if I misunderstood. Sounds like you don’t want to go the route of fender flares, since you’re talking about rolling the fenders even more? Regarding handling…offset (by itself) doesn’t really factor, unless it makes a difference in vehicle track width. A wider track will generally improve a car’s stability and overall handling (assuming all other factors equal). Negative offset can give you more room on the inside for bigger brakes. Many of the OTS big brake kits on the market today advertise possible interference with 15” wheels and smaller. Hope this helps.

If your 15x8, et0 wheels are almost rubbing on the outer fender sheet metal, then 15x9, -13 will definitely have major interference issues….negative offset will create a deeper “dish”. Sounds like you may want to look at wheels with some positive offset, but be careful that they don’t have interference with the strut tubes on the inside (assuming that you’re running stock-diameter strut springs). There are dozens of threads here on this exact topic; have you already reviewed them and not found a suitable solution?

Are you looking for something like this? https://www.silverminemotors.com/products/wilwood-120-12069-wilwood-120-12070-caliper-cable-emergency-brake If you prefer to piece together your own system, several vendors offer separate hardware components (e.g. cables, brackets, etc) and the owner (i.e. you) has to source calipers separately. Finally, one of the members here is selling these: Hope this helps.

Good to see you’re still going strong! Enjoyed seeing you run on “Street Outlaws”…I think it was a couple years ago?

That’s kind of an open-ended question. If you’re just looking for 15x8 wheels with 4x114 lug pattern, they’re readily available from dozens of vendors. You’ll need to know what offset you want. And do you have a specific budget? New wheels can range in price from $100 to thousands of dollars per wheel. You’ll need to be more specific in your post if you’re looking for a specific wheel brand, wheel style, wheel material, etc, etc. Are you only interested in Mini Lites??

Kind of hard to understand the situation without the actual wiring diagram you’re using…but I’ll give it a shot. Is your “constsntly live wire” supposed to be connected to unswitched 12V? If so, your windshield wiper washer motor is not a good source— that’s a switched circuit, as Bradman pointed out. (However, it should still be providing 12V to the relay once the car is running, so I don’t know if that’s really the root of your problem.). I suspect your problem may be the relay. How many pins does it have, and was it provided as part of the fan kit? Finally, have you tested the fan by connecting directly to 12V just to ensure that it’s operating properly?

There are actually quite a few threads threads here on this exact topic; this is just one example, but a quick search will yield several results. https://forums.hybridz.org/topic/67531-ac-delcogm-alternator-swap-part-2-cs144-installation/ There are also several discussions, same topic, on ClassicZCars.com if you're unable to find a solution that you like here.