mom'sZ

Cameron: If your's is a 240 I'm not going to be much help answering your questions because mine is a 280. I used the stock gland nuts and they fit perfect. As far as which direction is the bushing suppose to go, what bushing? Do you mean the bushing that slids down over the threaded portion of the shaft? That bushing came from the camber plate maker, ground control. It was tapered on one end and slid down onto the shaft from above the camber plates tapered end first and also was a pefect fit. Where did you get your camber plates or are you using camber plates?

Jon, one thing I wanted to mention was that the new koni's are slimmer and fittting them inside the 280 strut tubes is not a problem. You will also definitly need a spacer for the back.

In places where you need to do body work or weld metal patches you should take a grinder with 24 grit disc and grind it down to bare metal. Anywhere you need to weld has to be very clean before welding. On large flat areas the grinder will work well for this, but anywhere you can't get with a grinder you can sandblast. This is best done just prior to welding the patch. Anywhere you are going to apply body filler it is a good idea to grind it to bare metal as well. After you've welded a patch on, you need to clean up the welds with the grinder and sandblaster again before applying body filler. When you get done with your body work, smooth the transition from the bare metal to painted surface with a sander. This is called feather edging. Apply primer/surfacer to the area, covering just the bodywork and feather edging. After the primer/surfacer has dried the bodywork can be block sanded. If the car has never been painted and has a factory paint job on it, that factory paint job makes the perfect substrate (foundation) for a new paint job. If the car has been painted, you must decide if the paint that is on the car is sound enough to be painted over. If the paint job is peeling or flaking off or is bubbled, these types of things indicate it is not a sound paint job to paint over. In such cases it is best to sand down to the factory paint, but just in the effected areas. If many paint jobs have been done on the car and there is excessive build then it also should be sanded down to factory paint if possible. Stripping the car with chemical stripper should only be done as a last resort. If you have to use a heavy grit sandpaper to remove bad paint work try to leave the factory paint or at least the factory primer intact and apply a good primer/surfacer to fill sanding scratches and cover any bare metal spots. As far as not being able to find all the rust, don't worry, you'll find it. Obviously how to do body work is not something that can be fully described in a forum post, hope these tips help. Seaarch the forum for more tips.

OK... I did paint and body work for 25 years. My suggestion to you, and you may not want to hear this, is to not strip the car to bare metal unless there is some really compelling reason to do so. I have seen more cars with adhesion problems because they stripped the car. In the process of stripping the car, it is very hard not to get some surface rust or other contamination on the steel. Once the car is stripped, it's very hard to get any kind of primer to stick to it. Why do you want to strip the car? If it's because you've heard that's the way to do the ultimate paint job, you were misled. If it's because there is a bad non-factory paint job on it, just sand it down until you hit the factory paint / primer.

that's what I was going to say Jon, sounds like the liner. You may have stepped on, run it over, dropped something on it or whatever. I had one and you could twist it this way or that and it would weld, then you would crawl up in the car and get ready to weld and.... errrrrrr

About the brass... there is nothing wrong with using brass for body work on non-structural parts of the car so long as it is cleaned up properly afterwards. But on structural parts of the car, such as the unibody itself, I wouldn't recomend it. Most unibodies are constructed with what's called HSS, short for high strength steel. The mig welder creates much higher heat in the area of the actual weld, but the time needed to create the weld is very short. Because of this the surrounding sheet metal is heated a lot less then when a torch is used. Even when you are using brass which melts much quicker then steel, the torch heats up the area and destroys the strength in the steel. The brass is much stronger then the surrounding steel, but also much more hard and brittle. If the area is in another accident, the sheet metal tends to tear around the brass weld.

OK... the bronze colored stuff is brass. Its use was pretty typical back when our cars were a current model. When I was a young man (25 years ago) working in the body shop biz, we had never even heard of a mig welder. There was one way to weld on the body of a car... oxy/acetylene torch. And there were two methods to torch weld, brass and steel. Brass was easier, it has a lower melting point then steel. To use it on steel it needed a flux and rods coated with such were readily available. You didn't allow the steel to completely melt, you warmed it until it was glowing red hot, and the brass would melt in. It was more of a soldering type thing to me then welding. Using a steel rod was harder to master, you had to actually heat the two pieces to melting temp. A lot of guys took the easier route and brass welded stuff. But as a body repair method it had it's short comings. The flux residue left over is corrosive and must be cleaned off. Grinding rarely removed all of it and even a tiny amount will cause body filler to bubble. Really the only sure fire way to clean it was to sand blast. And has been disscussed here often, sand blasting is messy. Most guys skipped that step. With unibody cars, when they are damaged in a collision, the proper method of repair is to realign the damaged area with a frame machine to fix secondary damage, then cut off the damaged area and replace. The repair on your Zcar looks consistent with that method. It's common to replace the core support panel, they're right out front and often take the shot. And in your case, the one side got crushed as well. It was also common to replace the inner fender from the tower foward, some cars even have a seam there. So... the repair looks ok in that respect. But the use of brass to weld it up, well... the guy didn't do it how I would have done it. The other thing I didn't like was the crease in the other side with the bullet holes. Those are from a slide hammer. That upper sort of boxed section of the inner fender is for strength and should have been more properly straightened. What to do now? Well if it was a street car and you really didn't plan to use the car for any type of sporting event that included handling trials I would say clean the brass up with a sand blaster, carefully reseam seal it, paint and reassemble the car. Even if the car was going to be occasionaly autoXed a little bit for fun, it (the repair) would probably suffice. But if you truely want to regain all the original strength of the unibody, you would have to properly repair the damage. Which in my opinion would mean cutting the brassed up panels back off and replacing them with new. A little extreme, but I'm a body man (retired) If you really were cash strapped you might could reuse the panels by cutting them off, cleaning all the brass off and welding them back on. (it might work on the core support panel) Is there a middle ground? Well... you probably could weld between the brass welds with a mig. Pick places between the brass welds where there is no brass. (the brass will definitly screw up your mig welds) If you can get a lot of good strong tacks in between the brass, then you may be all right. I'd plate in the one place were the crease is in the inner fender or something. I'll have to look closer at the pics.

Cameron: I already have a set of the Koni 8610-1437RACE inserts installed on my car. I ordered them before they were even available in this country. The car is being prepared for SCCA ITS but at the moment I'm driving it around on the street with the exact same spring rates you have. The ride is firm but not harsh. It never bottoms out. Typical Zcar rear end squat upon hard acceleration is completely eliminated. Nose dive under hard braking gone as well. And handling is awesome. With 40 series Toyos the car is on rails. You have to pitch it wildly into corners at stupid fast speed to even get it to slid. I personally am still coming to terms with the limits of the car. And this is with NO sway bars, I have a set of fatory sways but they are not even installed. I wanted to see how it handled without them. What John is talking about is road race handling on the track. Under those conditions handling is a very individual thing and his path of development and yours may not be the same. I don't think you are going to be disappointed with your Koni's.

Cameron: I already have a set of the Koni 8610-1437RACE inserts installed on my car. I ordered them before they were even available in this country. The car is being prepared for SCCA ITS but at the moment I'm driving it around on the street with the exact same spring rates you have. The ride is firm but not harsh. It never bottoms out. Typical Zcar rear end squat upon hard acceleration is completely eliminated. Nose dive under hard braking gone as well. And handling is awesome. With 40 series Toyos the car is on rails. You have to pitch it wildly into corners at stupid fast speed to even get it to slid. I personally am still coming to terms with the limits of the car. And this is with NO sway bars, I have a set of fatory sways but they are not even installed. I wanted to see how it handled without them. What John is talking about is road race handling on the track. Under those conditions handling is a very individual thing and his path of development and yours may not be the same. I don't think you are going to be disappointed with your Koni's.

jon: How far apart are you planning to take the car? You stated that it is on a rotisserie so I assume it's disassembled to some degree. Having been a body man for over twenty five years, I would want to sand blast it. I remember from that other rust thread you have some experience with sand blasting, so I'm assuming you are trying to avoid having to do that. (I'm doing a lot of assuming aren't I?)

it does indeed, and yes you do use the valve thats going to go in that seat

indeed lunar

yes but, this class is very competetive with very restrictive rules. When it comes to reciprocating weight, ounces are a big deal They do not... stock flywheel, but clutch is free

good point, especially in the front according to suspension guru JohnC So do tell Richard.... what brand of eccentric bushing are those? Because all the folks who race say they slip and for IT it would be really cool to find some that don't.

Everyone: I want to get a new clutch / pressure plate for my 78 280Z with stock L28. The car will be ITS race car and power level will be no higher then 190 - 200 HP. My biggest concern is a lightwieght clutch / pressure plate assembly in order to reduce reciprocating wieght. I've search for some threads and read a few suggestions. Here's one http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=106651&highlight=clutch Also, please make suggestions on where to order from.. summit, jegs whatever. and a throwout bearing.

Tony: I don't work in a machine shop, but have and also done some porting on heads. When you are working in the valve bowl area, directly behind the valve, through the valve hole... you MUST be careful!!! Like you said, the bit can catch and slip and result in the seat being scarred. Now that it has happened, here's how you can tell if you need to have the seats reground. Get a lapping stick and some lapping compound, they are cheap and if it doesn't work you'll only be out a couple bucks. Attempt to lap the valves that are damaged. After you do, you should see a consistent width band of clean metal around the valve seat. It wouldn't be the full width of the valve seat, but it should be at least half the width with a little above and below not touched. If you can still see the gouge, you might have trouble. What the user MONGO510 was talking about, prussian blue, is also called machinist blue or machinist dye. It can be purchased most places where you can purchase lapping compound. You apply the machinist dye to the valve seat before lapping and if any blue dye remains after lapping there will still be an air leak. (the valve will not fully seal) The prussian blue is just a way to be able to see easier. If it appears that the gouge is still there, lap some more. If you have to, you can chuck the lapping stick up in a drill and try it that way. If that doesn't work you may have to have the machine shop regrind the seat. As to whether or not all the seats need reground or just the damaged ones, when you regrind a seat, the valve sits slightly deeper in the head. Because of this the combustion chamber is slightly (very very slightly) enlarged. For a racing engine that is blueprinted so all the cambers are exactly equally sized this could be a problem. But for a home port job it is probably no big deal. The valve bowl is the most important part of the porting job. The greatest increases in air flow come from correctly porting this area. But the best and often only way to get in there is from the opening where the valve goes so you must be super careful. Some times I put duct tape over the seat while I'm working in that area. Hope this helps

Thank you. looks like it fits in there prety well. You are going to put a cage in the car right? Or just half cage? I'm sorry, I can't recall

Thanks John for a great post. The thing I walked away with was how economical TIG machines have become. Price range is still high for a hobbist but within reason. I to will be in the market for a welder shortly. Having done collision, restoration and bodywork for twenty five years, I am no stranger to a MIG machine. I'm quite certain I could teach a smart dexterous chimpanzee how to MIG weld in less then five minutes... ANYBODY can do it. point, push button, weld. TIG on the other hand, is more difficult to master. Cruez, you say you can oxy acetylene weld? Well you would be a good candidate for someone who could pick up TIG welding pretty well. It is similiar in that as the article states, you feed in filler rod with one hand while positioning the heat source (the electrode) with the other. When you gas weld you hold the rod in one hand and the torch in the other. Unlike a mig, you control how much filler is added using judgement learned through practice. You learn to hold the tip of the torch just so to heat the area you need to weld. When I did a lot of panel replacement, a MIG was the tool of choice for bodywork. Doing factory recommended unibody repair meant doing spot welds, lot of them. Usually quarter inch holes are punched or drill in one panel and the hole then filled to join the two panels. A MIG was fast, reducing warpage. You dial in the heat and wire speed on the first few welds, then go to town. Like Mike said the lower end stuff is not very adjustable so you are limited. For years at work we used a Millermatic. It was a great machine. I did a couple year stint in a machine shop that did mostly racing stuff. The owner had a nice TIG and what he could weld with it was amazing, all the way from paper thin steel all the way up to cast magnesium casings.

something is causing that bank to run VERY lean, like the fuel line is plugged/crimped or the FI harness came unplugged.

As soon as I get the car on the track I will let you know. I am considering running the car at a couple of autoXs just to shake it down. I am considering the 8611s for the next upgrade. I don't think having to unbolt the steering arm would be that big a deal. Thanks again for all the information you have provided on these inserts.

As soon as I get the car on the track I will let you know. I am considering running the car at a couple of autoXs just to shake it down. I am considering the 8611s for the next upgrade. I don't think having to unbolt the steering arm would be that big a deal. Thanks again for all the information you have provided on these inserts.

Thanks John for some excellent information concerning the Konis. I can confirm the Koni 8610-1437RACE do indeed seem to have this set up. It's actually the housing cap that's crimped. Will make sure the gland nut stays tight. Clarkspeed: I am running the Koni 8610-1437RACE on my car (78 280z). Did not have them revalved before installation. I have not driven the car on the race track yet, so can't comment on there perfornance on the track. Also, I got mine at shox.com and they were only $130 each.

Thanks John for some excellent information concerning the Konis. I can confirm the Koni 8610-1437RACE do indeed seem to have this set up. It's actually the housing cap that's crimped. Will make sure the gland nut stays tight. Clarkspeed: I am running the Koni 8610-1437RACE on my car (78 280z). Did not have them revalved before installation. I have not driven the car on the race track yet, so can't comment on there perfornance on the track. Also, I got mine at shox.com and they were only $130 each.

well.... for one thing, bedliner dries. Undercoating often stays gooey, or at least soft. Bedliner is made to take impacts and undercoat is well... gooey.