tonycharger72

Good stuff man! I am a fair way away from the wiring unfortunately ! Lets us know how your diagrams turn out!

And to Clarify, Looks like you have two options to "bolt" together a Subaru Rack and slap it into your Z! Option1: Parts Needed, 90's Subaru Rack (refer to previous post on length); 1983-88 Toyota Tercel inner rack ends = Moog EV168; Stock Z Tie-Rod Ends! Option2: Parts Needed, 90's Subaru Rack (refer to previous post on length); 1984 Celica inner rack ends = Moog EV167; 1999 Subaru Forester tie-rod ends = Moog part ES3712! Keep in mind, these part #'s may be useless at your local parts stores or dealerships, so remember the year's of production of the specific part's you require just in case there part #'s are different!!! Sorry I can't be more specific on exactly which Subaru rack to get - but my personal experience is with a 1993 Legacy rack, Wheelman's is with a 1999 Forester rack - they may be identical, I dont know!!!

Now I can't say this for certain, but all the Subaru racks I have seen posted on this site look pretty much identical to the 1993 Legacy rack I have - sure the WRX STI Racks may be quicker, but from the outside they look really, really similar! Only way to know for certain is to go to a Subaru wrecker and pull out a bunch of racks and measure them all! I have a 1993 Legacy rack because it was cheap and local wreckers didn't have anything newer than about 1995! However - if your the Subaru rack you pick is 600mm approx in length, then you will be fine! and this is from where the rack ends meet the rack!

Sorry, disregard 1.25 - I was in a hurry and wrote that on the fly - it's 14x1.5! Means you get yourself a mid 90's Subaru PS rack, those Tercel Rack Ends and your Stock Z Tie-Rod ends and bolt it all together, hey presto!!! Miata rack is easier to mount and PS lines don't interfere with the crossmember as much and the ends are uniform and don't taper like the Subaru Rack, which means if you want to hack 15-20mm off each end and get the thread extended and thus have the rack length suit the Z inner LCA pivot points you can whilst still having lots of meat on the rack ends - you can do this as well to the Subaru rack, but the ends of the rack taper in, so very little meat left once you cut 15-20mm of the ends! NOTE though, the Miata has different part #'s for the rack ends (or it could be the tie-rod ends) I had a good look at an NB (Series 2 rack) and stuffed if I could see the difference in length from left to right rack-end, but this could also be a consideration for ditching the Miata rack - probably better to hold one in your hands before it gets dismissed!!!

Sorry Mike, your right 14x1.5 - thanks for clearing that up champ!

Sorry guys, it wasn't a Wide-Body Camry, The rack-end was from one of these things! 1982-1988 Toyota Tercel, Manual or PS Steering, The fellow has ordered on in for me, so should be able to provide some pics - but from memory, it was 145-150mm, 14x1.25 on both ends and rack side was flush, so this part together with the stock Z tie-rod ends should give you a "bolt-together"!!!

Read his words, thats not what is saying! However, he measured his at about 597mm, mine I have measured at 604mm! But my 1992 Legacy Rack looks awfully similar to pretty much every other Subaru Rack I have seen used by other folks on this forum! It's probably wise on the whole to measure your rack and go from there, but the racks I have actually seen with my own two eyes, Legacy's, Forester's and WRX's and RX's - all seem pretty darned similar to me !

Thought I might butt in here with the potential difficulties involved with installation Corvette front suspension will be a b@stard because its a double-a-arm setup and probably has a track 200mm wider than the Z's! I recently looked at the front subframe and suspension from an MX5 - basically to install the subframe you have to completely re-model your chassis rails - ie.......cut them out and install new ones! http://www.streetshopinc.com/images/str8axl/street_shop_inc_str8axl_large_09.jpg The Corvette might be an easier prospect based on that picture in the link above - but still have to figure out where your going to hang the Upper Control Arms and deal with the very large track increase (like ZG Flares will be needed)! If you are going to go to stick with a Mac Strut - use the S13/14/15 (like what Mull has done) lot's and lots of aftermarket goodies avialable for them and they don't start out being sh#t from the factory !

If you go to www.mininova.org you can get all the episodes in full! I have found that you get the full 60min's, whereas the ones shown on local Aust TV is cut down to 45mins so they can throw in 15min's worth of ad's (usually a Mustang blowing itself up on a Dyno because it used the wrong oil )!!! Yeah exactly, straight car shows can be a bit tedious and dull - It's like the Ford Focus review - started by a letter sent in by a viewer who asked if they ever did real car tests anymore - the show is much better when they move away from straight car reviews and "facts" - like the caravan episode, that was very funny stuff !!!

You get Top Gear in US? Love that show, very entertaining ! Loves Jerermy's review of the Ford Focus! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUsJyd_YRB0 & Part 2, what every car review should include !!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twWX9tOr9m0&feature=related

What is a VSS - Vechile Speed Sensor? Thought I might chime in on the fuel economy to, recently saw an episode of Top Gear where the 3 of them raced from Switzerland to Blackpool (England), it was 900 miles from Memory, Hammond drove the VW Emotion, which I think is just a Polo with a 3-cylinder 1.3L D and he got 74mpg's (UK Gallons though, 4.56L/1G) - this was some pretty serious "mileage" driving taking the shortest possible route, which meant a few back roads - Jeremy drove a V6 twin turbo'd Jag and floored it the whole way as he thought there was no way he was going to make it, he took the motorways - but he made it, with apparently 100miles spare in his 70L fuel tank!

Go and buy, Bolt it together ! At this point, this is a verified "bolt" together solution for using 90's early 00's Subaru Rack's! Have a look under your Z, the front suspension hangs of your front crossmember, you can't move it anywhere without figuring out where those bits and pieces are going to attach to!

Go the 13B! - Mate has one in his S2 RX7 - makes 440rwkw - WTF! amazing little engines and so easy to rebuild! Also, a fellow on Hybridz did a conversion with lots of pictures, which made it look reasonably straight forward! Only issue is the 13B uses the fuel of a 440 big block with a 6-pack !

Yes, if you use the Subaru Tie-Rod ends and Celica Rack Ends - BUT, I will have to get pics of my Tie-Rod Ends from my 1992 Legacy rack, they look very similar to Wheelmans Subaru Tie-Rod ends, but they don't have a suitable taper for the Z steering knuckles! BUT - the Rack looks very similar! S80's and S70's have the correct thread for the Subaru Rack, but the S80's are a touch to long, so you need to either increase the thread into the Subaru rack or cut down the rack ends - the S70's are correct in thread length, but they are a bit long and have a corse thread - I will try and get photos! I From what I have seen pretty much any Subaru rack from the mid-late 90's and early 00's are the same, externally anyways! Not really, you will basically increase you caster by moving the crossmember forward - you will effectively be increasing the angle of the strut, as it connects to the lower control arm, which connects to your crossmember - be better of doing something like this below! very simple and it works! http://www.vq240z.com-a.googlepages.com/frontsubframe

Well you would cut off the TC mounting brackets and install a K-Frame in there - the rails themselves are 638mm between them and 65mm approx wide, so K-Frame mounts would have to be in that ball-park to "bolt-up" underneath the Z chassis rails! I am making my own crossmember, which will resemble a boxy K-Frame, this was so I could use the S4/5 RX7 suspension and better mount the Subaru PS Rack - and mount my Engine properly as the engine mount locations are located towards the centre/back of the engine!

I think people are avoiding this conversion because, in theory, as it should create bumpsteer issues, But also, it seems most conversions require modifying the rack ends or modifying the rack in order to use the rack - are the Celica rack ends a bolt together? What year model Celica? got a part number? dont think the sticky specifies that, does it? Also, my mid 90's Subaru tie-rod ends are similar to the Z tie-rod end taper, but they are different for sure and I wouldn't use them!!! However, whatever combination you use to bolt together in order to get the correct overall length, you are still not addressing the issue of the inner pivot points on the rack being 15-20mm outbound of the LCA pivots - and its not that the rack is just further outbound, it is also higher as the Subaru rack is a bit fatter than the Z rack - that's if you stuff the Subaru Rack into the stock Z rack's mounting position, which everyone does! So ideally, you want the LCA pivots up and out! BUT, as you state mate, and as others have stated, you don't seem to have suffered any adverse effects from the aforementiond alignment issues!

I dont think they are, I saw them with my own two eyes and measured them, but I was told that the rack end was from a wide-body early 90's Camry, I will go and grab it and take some pics and make sure of the part - maybe could be different as it's an AUS unit and not a US unit, will get pics! But, curious - you went to a place that had both S80 and Wide-Body Camry rack ends on the shelf? that is cool! parts places I go to locally have about 15 different racks ends on the shelf (if I am lucky) - if I had a parts place like that locally I would spend an entire day in their stock room trying to locate a rack end that would suit !!! No, the S80's require you to trim the ends a touch or they bottom out on the Subaru rack, but if you use the S70 rack ends they will bolt up perfectly to the Subaru rack - but they are longer and have a different thread on the tie-rod end side than the S80 - need (from memory) an 9-10cm tie-rod end to make that work! Alternative is to extend the thread in the Subaru rack, But to do this proprely, you shouldn't be just pulling out your tap and die set, should be getting in done on a lathe I would think, which means pulling the rack apart! this is what ezzzzzzzzzzzzzzz did and from memory he advised special tools were required! Sorry - I got side tracked with other bits and pieces and sorta left this one hanging! Without a proper conclusion!!! I will get some pics together of the S70 and "Camry" rack ends for comparison! Whats a Z33? Almost every single car has a longer rack than the Z (including the Subaru Rack) but, big problem is f#ck all cars locate the rack in front of the Crossmember!

Where did you find that?

Yeah, think that will be the deciding factor - basically about the same price as the other fellow, but after sales service from Sideshow does sound like it is pretty good! still dont think I will get it cheaper though, he was coming down for SummerNats anyway and the price was still $1500, got the impression he had enough business going on that if he didn't get mine it was no big deal at all!!! Think its for the best mate, you know they lost the use of fire and live in mud-brick houses down there !

I used a 185amp EBAY Gasless Mig for mine - just turned up the power and wire feed to maximum, however this killed my MIG, after building the Rotisserie the wire feeder stopped working !!! That is a very good idea - my Rotisserie connects straight out from the bumper-bar supports, not offset at all, makes it a bugger to turn back over when the car is upside down, the pry-bar I welded onto the Rotisserie support got me around this issue, but offsetting the connections would have been a better way to construct the Rotisserie!!!

Think the Z32 N/A diff is an R200 VLSD and it has 3.70 gears! Hehehehe, sorry that was a poor attempt at humor, electricity is electricity, and the volt meter will just take a signal of the back of the alternator (or it should), I will send my engine harness to Sideshow or a fellow up in QLD who does a lot of 1UZ conversion's into Cobra's, Sideshow's prices seem to have jumped a bit - remember speaking to him a few years ago and he was going to charge $800 to come down to Canberra and do my wiring, now he is charging close to $1500! Think he said about $650 if I sent him my harness - lots of other things to worry about first though! Well the year model of my engine is roughly the same as yours, maybe the Datsun oil sender and temp senders will plug into the Toyota V8 - I will try that out!

Same, no drama's!

If you are doing stuff like replacing the floor pans or chassis rails - leave the doors and hatch on! Last thing you want is to replace these sorts of things and then go to put the doors back on and they dont fit anymore! I left all the glass in and all the panels on the car - except the front panels - they came off earlier and didn't bother reinstalling them for the work I was doing on the Rotisserie! My Rotisserie was made from two 900kg engine stands and just extended upwards - so I didn't have the roof slamming into the ground when I flipped it over! Also - when you flip the car over it will want to go awfully quick once you hit about the horizontal, caught me out the first time and scared the cr#p out of me !!! and it can be an absolute b@stard to spin back over the right way! To get around this I welded a lever bar onto the very end of the Rotisserie support vertically - allowed me to use this as a massive pry bar and made spinning the car back over much, much easier!!! Instead of me and a mate heaving away for 30-40mins, was able to do it by myself in 2mins easy, with all the glass, doors etc still in place!

Hey Russ, long time no here - You in Van Diemens Land yet? How is the Manual going? Hehehehe, not even close mate - kind of got a bit side tracked with the bodywork, but think I am close to finishing my new crossmember, so can bolt in the new suspension and the Subaru rack, but still a long way to go ! No sh#t - suppose the oil/temp only require a bung and the fuel gauge has nothing to do with the engine - but don't get how the volt meter works, isn't the electricity from the toyota different than the electricity from the L-Series? There is actually a place in Canberra if you purchase 5 or more VDO gauges they give you a 30% discount - actually makes it quite the attractive prospect!

Don't know if anyone sells that particular piece - you could always try a junkyard? If not, 1.2mm thick mild steel would be fine - think thats 18-20gauge!