SpeedRacer

Hey guys, the 305 got a bad rap because Chevy brought it out as an "Economy" motor. Long stroke and small bore provided decent torque, low emissions and better that the 350 fuel economy. However, like any small block Chevy there are things you can do to it. No, it's not going to be a 10 second 1/4 mile rev happy hauler but around the street in a light 240/260 Z it can be a good choice. You want it to be light and the biggest problem is the heads so buy a set of Trick Flow 23 degree aluminum heads. No, they are not 2.02" intake 1.50" exhaust but they are 1.94â€/1.50†and they flow great. http://www.trickflow.com/egnsearch.asp?N=400098+4294925232+4294908216+115+311478&autoview=sku Add a decent cam, aluminum intake with a REASONABLE sized 4bbl, and a set of headers and I think you will like the results.

The Helios H2000 and the H4000 will do it. I have the H4000 because I needed the component output for my projector. http://www.helios-labs.com/us/products/hline/index_hline.shtml BTW, if you have an HD TV the Helios DVD player makes for an awesome upconverting upgrade. The OPPO sometimes gets higher marks in some reviews but doesn't have all the outputs that the Helios has.

I used the Alpha dash because I wanted the vents and heater controls but the Simpson dash looks more like the original GTO dash. Of course the GTO was a race car and didn't have a speedometer but I think that is a bit impractical for a street car. Of course the speedometer doesn’t have to be in the dash. Many of the real GTO’s have them mounted to the transmission hump in front of the gearshift. Because it was a race car the gauges were quite large so they were easy to read at a glance. The real ones cost a small fortune so I used Stewart Warner. The tach & speedo are electronic and were designed as replacements for 1955 Chevy gauges and are 5.5" in diameter. The matching gauges are all 2.75" in diameter. All are black with white letters, white needles and chrome bezels. I wish the bezels were not rolled as I thought about dissembling the gauges and adding small white Ferrari prancing horse decals to the faceplates. BTW, the Alpha dash was designed to use all the original Z gauges.

Moss Motors http://www.mossmotors.com and most Cobra kit car sites have them. I bought mine from Moss Motors

The biggest problem with two formats is that some of the Hollywood studios are supporting only one of the formats so the movie you want to see might not be available in the format that plays on your machine. And yes, Blu-ray has had a slight lead in the number of titles available and sold but that was because of Sony being first and the fact that they own a movie studio. The landscape is shifting since Dreamworks and Paramount recently decided to stop producing Blu-ray disks. If Sony wasn’t so greedy we would only have one format. Why should you have to own both a Blu-ray player AND a HD DVD player to see all the movies you want to watch. I’ll say it again, my upconverting player works great so I’m not buying either one unit they straighten it out.

Sony invented Bluray and charges a license fee to anybody that builds a Bluray device just like the old days with Beta. So most Bluray machines will probably always cost more. Things are a bit different this time since Sony sells the PS3's and owns a movie studio. However, Microsoft went with HD-DVD so their huge presence and weight might help HD-DVD win. BTW, Wal-Mart was selling Toshiba HD-DVD players for $199 just before Christmas. And don’t let anybody tell you there is much of a difference between 1080i and 1080p. Go see for yourself. Even side by side the human eye can not tell the difference. naviathan makes an excellent point. VHS won the war against Betamax in large part because the porn industry got behind VHS and published a ton of material. I would definitely wait or you run the chance of wasting your money on the machine AND all the movies you buy. Seriously, buy an OPPO, Helios or any other upconverting DVD player!

I'm with TeamNissan - wait to see who wins, HD-DVD vs. BetaRay. I also think HD-DVD is both cheaper and better but just wait. However, so you can enjoy your new HD TV, buy an upconverting DVD player like an OPPO or Helios H4000 http://www.helios-labs.com/us/products/index.shtml I have a Helios H4000 that I bought from Amazon for $149 (and free shipping). It's an amazing machine! The OPPO is usually slightly higher rated but it doesn't have HD 1080P through the component output. I need that for my projector since it doesn't have HDMI.

jn6 - chelle, who posted right above your comment on this thread, has one of the most awesome Z based Ferrari GTO replicas around. It has a stretched wheelbase with a BMW V12 installed. Contact her as I am sure she can help you. A little searching will turn up some of the info and pictures of her car.

Hi espeery, I too have seen somewhere that the 250 Ferrari GTO color is Cina Red (or China red) but several of the books I have call it Rosso Corsa (racing red). Glasurit, who currently supplies the Ferrari factory, has a vintage car program that will match any old color. I believe the North American distributor for Glasurit is BASF. So, find a local automotive paint store that carries BASF and you should be able to get what you need. BTW, it is a matter of taste but I find the original GTO red a little too orange for my taste. Therefore, I painted my car Porsche Guards Red and like the way it turned out. Take a good look at the old Ferrari’s and you will see a vast variation in the red paint color, (or is it colour)?

Regulatori, Contact a Nardi dealer. I have a genuine Nardi wheel with a Nardi hub on my 240Z. In my case I bought my setup from Jim Simpson http://www.simpsondesign.net/

veritech-z It’s tough to tell but judging from the firewall and the rest of the engine compartment that is an actual Ferrari. It is probably a 250 or 330GTE which were often converted into a GTO. There are actually quite a few of them around and most are difficult to tell from the real thing. That's because they are aluminum and made from the original Ferrari molds (bucks) that Ferrari provided to England's Maranello Concessionaires. You see, the Maranello Concessionaires racing team raced the GTO's and needed a way to quickly repair them if they got wrinkled in a race. Ferrari provided them with a set of bucks they could use to hammer out new body panels when needed. Many years later these bucks were used to make panels so you could convert a real Ferrari to look like a GTO. As covered by Road & Track magazine, it's a long and fascinating story. Ferrari tried to stop them like they did in the US to kit car manufactures. However, this time they failed. Basically the court ruled that Ferrari failed to stipulate the "use" of the molds when they were provided to Maranello Concessionaires so they can not do so now. The story continues but in the end the guy who owned the bucks and the bucks themselves have disappeared off the face of the earth. .

The Dragon is an awsome place to drive but take it easy according to this blog from our local newspaper the Knoxville News Sentinel http://blogs.knoxnews.com/knx/smokies/ "NEW TENNESSEE MOTTO ... YOU'ALL DON'T COME BACK NOW. So says one of the irate headlines on the Tail of the Dragon website. The Tail of the Dragon is the nickname for a portion of US 129 in the Deals Gap area flanking the southwestern portion of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. With 318 curves in 11 miles, the road is quite popular with motorcyclists." "I've driven the Dragon a couple of times, most recently this last fall - its a great drive. I had a midlife-crisis sportscar driver complete with trophy wife (or girlfriend) riding my tail for part of it. Apparently my rental car wasn't taking the curves fast enough for his taste. I also stopped and helped a motorcyclist pick up his bike after he lost it on one of those 318 curves. Fortunately, I think only his pride was hurt, he and the bike were fine, just a few bloody knuckles." "Two fatal accidents on this road in the last month have triggered increased police patrols on the road, causing some controversy. Click over to the Tail of the Dragon website and read an exchange between the Tennessee Highway Patrol and the motorcycle enthusiasts. Some people are none too happy about the saturation patrols." "It will be interesting to see how this one plays out. If you take it anytime soon, it would probably be a good idea to really watch your speed." I have found that fall, just after the color disappears and it's chilly for most bike riders, is a great time for cars to run the dragon. Fewer bikes, cars and cops make for a better run.

Ferrari called his car a 512BB (Berlinetta Boxer) for its 5 litre, 12 cylinder horizontally opposed (flat) engine. An engineer would say it is really not a “Boxer†engine but a 180 degree V because two rods share a crankshaft journal but you miss the point. If you have ever seen a Ferrari 12 cylinder “Boxer†engine you will note that it is extremely wide. To fit that engine in the front of a Z car would require a significant widening of the engine compartment and probably the front suspension as well. On the other hand a 60 degree Colombo dry sump V12 Ferrari engine would probably fit quite nicely. I would love to try and put one in my car some day.

DR Sideways is right - a 512 Ferrari engine is a 5 litre "boxer" or flat 12 cylinder engine that is found in the 512BB and late model Testarossa/512TR mid engine cars. It would be almost impossible to fit that engine in a Z car. If it's an old V12 engine from a different car it would fit. When I started to build my replica years ago, Joe Alphabet referred me to a guy that had a Ferrari V12 in his Alpha 1 GTO. Unfortunately I have since lost is contact information as I would love to see the car today.

It's about 17 miles from where I live. It is commonly know as "The Tail of the Dragon" http://www.tailofthedragon.com and people come from all over the world to drive it. It's an awesome road - 318 turns in 11 miles!!! Super smooth and almost all the turns are banked. Gorgeous scenery by following the river for most of the run. Unfortunately quite a few bikers have been seriously injured and killed on it so Tennessee has recently added additional patrols to keep the speed down.

I also used the Alpha 1 GTO dash in my car. I bought it from John Washington (Reaction Research) http://www.reactionresearch.com/automotive.html The Alpha dash fits 1973 260Z and up to the 1978 280Z vehicles. Nissan made numerous changes between the 240 and 260 Z. Not only did they change some of the dash mounting points but the relocated the steering column lower by about an inch. The biggest change was in the Heating and Ventilation system which was totally revamped. Since the Alpha dash is mounted on the original Datsun steel skeleton I had to do extensive modifications to make it fit my 1971 Z based GTO. I ended up getting a complete 1973 HV system and modified/adapted/manufactured/ the two different systems to make it work. You might want to look at the GTO dash that Jim Simpson made. It's all fiberglass and I think it fits all 1970 - 1978 Z cars. OM Motorsports sells it now. http://www.omsportscars.com/main-en.html

Check the casting numbers at Mortec http://www.mortec.com/ for the block and heads. The web site will show you where to find the casting numbers.

Because of the Tri-Power on my engine and because I am using the JTR type of engine mounting (with an extra 1" rearward slot) I used an MSD 8750 small diameter billet distributor. http://www.msdignition.com/dist_9.htm I'm not sure but it might work because it is a really small, low profile dizzy. The downside is it does not have a vacuum advance.

Hold on to your wallet as this one will scare you - Ferrari Parts Exchange has them http://www.ferraripartsexchange.com/sidemarkers.htm Sometimes Dennis McCann will have used ones http://www.allferrariparts.com/home.html

You might want to check and see if you have a Gas Tank Renu http://www.gastankrenu.com/ dealer near you. I had them do my tank six years ago and it's worked fine ever since. At the time they charged me $175 and it was well worth it. Interesting process and they provide a nationwide lifetime warranty.

Smash, you are so right - it never hurts to ask – because you never know. Zerrari GTO - I used headlamp assemblies w/trim rings from a Cobra kit car supplier. I liked the trim rings because they were quite a bit thinner than the VW type. I wanted the finished look but didn't want the trim rings to really stand out. I think I got my license plate lights from Ron Francis Wiring but I am not sure and will have to check.

Hi Smash, That is very interesting but I don't know about my car being destined to end up in the UK. I am going to build a new car soon but I think I will hold on to the GTO because it's so different and so much fun to drive. BTW, there was a used Ferrari dealer in the UK that had a representative photo of each model for sale on the top of the column. He used a picture of my car until I told him it was a replica! MBS Specialty Cars used it to but at least Dave gave me credit. http://mbskc.com/ Thanks!

That's what I did too. Even ground the old bracket off the firewall to clean things up. Simple, works great and has a nice feel and travel to it.

Zerrari GTO - Yes they are 15" Dayton wires. I used 8" front and 10" rear wheels on my car with Dunlop P205R70’s on the front and P225R70’s on the rear. They don't stick out but they sure fill up the wheel wells. The front wheels have a negative offset of about 5.5" and rear wheels have negative offset of 8".