RPMS

Man, what an open-ended question! Let's see... I'd start with a destroked 400 smallblock, equip it with a forged crank and pistons, ARP grade 8 fasteners in everything, Edelbrock ProFlo Performer multi point fuel injection with data logging, Airflow Research aluminum heads, and a nice, conservative cam with just a bit of lope in it. That should be good for well over 400 hp on pump gas, with no pesky turbos or superchargers to muck things up. Transmission choice? Gotta have the T-56! That .5:1 overdrive would simply rock on long trips. Talk about your long legs! At each corner, I'd have coilovers and Bilsteins (if I could find some that would work) and the fattest rubber that would possibly fit under the stock arches w/o rubbing, wrapped around Porsche Boxster style rims. Inside I'd have Recaro seats and backlit VDO gauges, and a sinfully expensive MOMO steering wheel. And meat-freezer air conditioning. I know, those last three items aren't perfomance equipment in the strictest sense of the term, but they help me get the job done, so I include them anyway. What's on YOUR list?

I just took off the other three lug nuts on each wheel. Funny, but nobody seems impressed.... Seriously though, yeah, he's talking about the spindle hubs that are all the rage with the import set. It allows your wheel to have a much smaller center, and a somewhat lower unspring weight. Looks trick, but I'd be forever paranoid that I didn't torque it down to the specified 425 ft/lbs or so of torque they require.

You now have my full and undivided attention. Would you please tell me where you got them? I didn't know such an animal was available for our cars! And I've gotta say, I really like the way they look on your car! Nice rims + fat rubber + shiny red car = GREAT look!!

You now have my full and undivided attention. Would you please tell me where you got them? I didn't know such an animal was available for our cars!

This is going to sound silly, but can you post a picture of the car? That might help us determine if someone lowered it by cutting the springs, or something. Tim's right - we're willing to help, but we need more information. It definitely sounds like something's not right. 280's with stock suspensions in good shape are veritably plush!

To quote Microsoft, "That's not a bug, it's a FEATURE." Z locks of that era don't lock w/o using the key unless the door is closed. 60's Fords were the same way. True, it's inconvenient, but it's also really tough to inadvertently lock yourself out of the car. I managed to do it one Christmas by walking up to the locked car, unlocking and raising the hatch, locking it and removing the key, then dumping a bunch of packages (and my keys) inside and slamming the hatch. The instant it was closed, I realized what I'd done. D'oh! As far as why your key won't lock the car from outside, it sounds like your adjuster is out of whack. Take the door panel off and examine the locking works. Can you make the door lock work if you nudge the locking rod while you twist the key? If you can unlock the door from the outside and lock the door from the inside, then everything sounds like it's working right, it's only out of adjustment. Good luck!

Like Tomahawk says, the spring rates are WAY different on the 240 and 280. I put some stock 280 springs on my 260, and it jacked the rear end up like a 1974 Nova on the way to the dragstrip! When placed side by side, the springs were of identical height with the same number of coils. Good luck! Scott

Are you saying that, as you look at the car from the front, the headlights aren't centered in the buckets?

Hello, Jaime! Yeah, there seem like about a dozen little rods and pivots in there when you're trying to diagnose a problem with the locking/latching system! As you say, I don't think the problem you're experiencing is with the locks themselves. Where I'd check are the little plastic thingamabobs that lock the rods together. If they all look to be in good shape, I'd check the plastic barrel adjuster on the driver's side. It sounds like it might be adjusted so that it juuuuust barely unlocks, and doesn't click the cam over all the way. That way, when the door slams, it knocks the locking cam back to the "locked" position. Just a thought...

If you're happy with your ZXT, you'd probably fall asleep in an IS300. I've driven every Lexus made (except for the SUV) and while they're as competent as any other Toyota product and are very comfortable, they don't excite the senses. If you're going into one from a Lincoln Town Car, I'm sure it seems quite sporty. From a Z, it's a snoozer. They aimed for the BMW 3-series with the IS300 and performance wise, they hit their mark. But the car still isn't FUN like the BMW is. Perhaps it's just the FWD character coming through, I dunno.

I agree - the 2000 GT is a beautiful car, and the similarity in prifile to the Z, especially on the back half, is stunning. Don't you wish they'd put the Z's filler cap where the 2000 GT's is? That looks awesome. I just got through reading an article on the convertible. Turns out there were only 337 cars sold, and only two convertiles were produced by the factory. After the Bond film wrapped production, one was lost, and the article says the other one ended up in Toyota's Tokyo museum. (Perhaps the one that was lost was found at the Blackhawk museum by Donna?) A dentist in England tried to buy the 2000GT from the museum to put in his "cars of the stars" collection and was soundly rebuffed, so he found another one in poor condition in Africa, chopped the top, and had it restored. The producers of the Bond film even sent him the TV control panel that went behind the seats to make it authentic! It's a neat story, and a neat car that should be remembered. Too bad most of us won't ever have the chance to see one in the flesh.

Jaime, I wasn't specifically thinking of your thread, although that was the one that brought it to mind. The phrase "bling bling" has been used several times in these pages, sometimes referring to a specific thing, and sometimes used as an exclaimation. Modern speech is like that - a word might be used for several different things, depending on circumstances, making it tough to determine meaning from context. So... "Bling bling" means (in essence) flashy, so can also refer to flashy, over-the-top behavior (burning donuts in front of the courthouse, etc). It may be used with admiration or disrespect, also depending on context. *whew!* Staying abreast of current slang is tough! Thanks for the info. And Auxillary, I visited Mr. Bling and I have to admit, that answers the long held question, "Where do they get those things???" Now I know! Did you notice that one of their sample caps said "Sweet Z"? You can get a set just like that in time for the next Z convention!

Heya, Bud. The best thing you can do (after ordering the JTR book, that is) is to take a day off of work and cruise everyone's web page. Most folks on here who have a page listed also have invaluable information. What they did right, and more importantly, what they did WRONG! Just my .02. Welcome to the board, and have fun!

Thanks for the endorsement! Where did you get them, and if you don't mind my asking, how much did you pay? 17's, huh? Do you have any pictures of your wheels? I'd love to see them!

Thanks for the opinions, guys. I'm curious about the "performance per dollars spent" aspect. it sounds like putting slightly thicker oil might be the cheapest way to stiffen up the rear suspension. But then, considering that it only cost me $54 to put new gas struts in, it's not a lot of money saved, is it? Oh well. I guess if there was significant performance to be had from just changing oil, the factory would have already done it, wouldn't they?

Okay, now y'all have done it. You've made me feel like a white-bread grandpa who can't keep up with the modern lingo. I used to feel like I was hip to the jive and a cool phat daddy, but this is just beyond me. I've seen Fast & Furious. I listen to modern album oriented rock. Heck, I've even done a web search! All "Bling Bling" comes up with is Amazon.com's offer to buy some bling bling at reduced prices, and lots of sites having to do with rap and "pimp daddies" and lots of extremely large gold jewelry. WTF? Would someone PLEASE educate me? I feel like I've lost the thread of the modern collective consciousness. Soon I'll be sounding like an 80 year old man spouting off about horseless carriages! Scott Ferguson *sigh* Feeling old...

Heya, Tom! Sorry you had a bad night at the races. But a bad night racing is better than a good night at work, ain't it? I think what you might have been seeing at the track wasn't specifically indifference or impertinence by the younger set, but rather massive ignorance. Remember that most of the sport/compact enthusiasts think that performance is measured by the number of accessories they can load a car up with. The minority of them that are truly performance oriented consider skidpad G's to be the yardstick of performance, not 1/4 mile times. They grew up in a time when it was much more difficult to make a car go fast than it was to make it handle well. I think what I'm trying to say is, the quarter mile track is foreign ground to most of them, otherwise they'd be driving Camaros and Mustangs, rather than polite little compact cars. This means that they have no concept of what constitutes good behavior at the track. They clump up together like frightened lambs looking for safety in numbers, and don't understand why you're irritated with them for clogging the pits or the staging lanes. All they to do is huddle together and try desperately to look cool. To borrow a phrase from a well known book, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." Of course I'm probably wrong, since I've been accused on any number of occasions of always trying to think the best of people, no matter how rotten they can be.

The wheels and bodykit look good, but oh, that interior! I've got no problem with the white parts (except for thinking that the dashboard would generate a huge anount of windshield glare), but POWDER BLUE??? What was he thinking? It looks like a SeaDoo, or something. Oh well - nothing SEM leather dye wouldn't fix.

Fed Ex has ALWAYS done better for me. UPS has screwed up about 50% of the shipments I've received or sent through them in one way or another. I'll call them up, and tell them to put a hold on a package so I can pick it up at their office. Doesn't work. Or the package ends up around the corner instead of at my office. Or they lose it for four weeks, then it magically shows up back at MY door. Or it gets drop kicked during shipment. Etc, etc, etc. I could write a book. Although FedEx isn't perfect and is more expensive, they at least ACT like they care. Their customer service is way better than UPS's, IMHO.

?!?! What? THAT'S why I kept falling down on my bike! I'd forgotten the hub and spokes. I thought having alloy rims was enough! And I thought it had something to do with my technique. Thanks for clearing it up! Scott Ferguson 1974 260-Z 1996 Cannondale SR500

Hey, guys. When I pulled the rear suspension from a late 280Z (a 1977, I think) I saw that it was rebuildable. Has anyone tried using a heavier weight oil in the resevoir to firm up an otherwise stock suspension? It seems like this would be a very inexpensive way to increase your damping. Whaddya think? Scott

That's SWEET! But the smallest one they make is slightly over 52 inches long! You'd need to lengthen the nose of your Z by a foot or so...

I remember the cars that Jim is talking about. I think they ran Indy... Anyway, the reason they didn't last wasn't because of the threat of mechanical breakdown in the middle of a turn. If I remember correctly, they had a nasty habit of Hoovering up any foreign material on the track and spitting it out the rear-facing fans at ridiculously high speeds. Can you imagine trying to draft on a car like that with pebbles and stuff rocketing towards you at a closing velocity of 400 mph?? I remember that the "sucker cars" could run insane amounts of lateral G. Neat idea, if it had worked out. Scott "Nothing sux like Electrolux" Ferguson

Hey, I don't see why you couldn't apply modern paint with just a brush. I had a roommate that did something like that with his land yacht in college. Looked... well, let's just say that it looked "unique". It wasn't exactly a chick magnet. I gues if you wanted to, you could sand the heck out of the paint after it dried it to get it semi-level. What an incredible amount of work, though.

Hey, Lightning, I colored the bulbs in my AutoMeter gauges with red glass paint I found at a chain hobby store. (Michaels / MJ Design) It worked fairly well, but maybe you can learn from my mistakes. 1) when you dip the bulbs, you'll get a thick red blob of paint at the tip of the bulb. I gently touched a piece of paper to the surface of the blob, and about 25% of it transferred to the paper. DON'T touch the bulb itself or you might leave a blemish. Just touch the paint and you should be okay. Oh, and you'll probably need at least two coats. Mine looked decidedly pink after only one, so I recoated them a second time with much better results. 2) Once the paint had dried, I grabbed the bulb and... *surprise!*... I was wrong - it was still wet. Very messy. Give it lots of time to dry. 3) The second time around I used a hair dryer on the glass paint, and ended up giving it a crackly finish. Not good. Don't be impatient - let it air dry. 4) The third time I waited 24 hours, put the bulbs into the holders and snapped them in place. Looked good, but after about an hour of use I noticed that my new gauges had developed a film on the inside of the clear faces. My best guess is that when the bulbs were illuminated and the paint got hot, more solvent broke out from under the skin and carried some of the paint onto the gauge face and glass. It's not horrible looking, so I'm living with it (for now). Perhaps it would be a good idea to light up the bulbs for an hour or two outside the gauges so any residual solvent can evaporate. Good luck, and let us know how it goes!