2ManyZs

Pete, Ken L has been trying to swipe mine for the past few years....now I know why he always stops when he's down this way..... I bought mine back when you could still get them from Nissan...and the last few new sets I've seen being sold were getting up near the 800-1K for a pair of NIB covers. I emailed you a pic of one of mine, although, it's not all that great a picture.

Cary and Paul, I've had the same argument with a more than one person who claimed the triple SU wouldn't work also. They always wanted to argue about the firing order as well, but none of them could explain how a triple Weber/Mikuni/ etc set up could work so well and not a triple SU set up. If their theory was correct, then wouldn't it stand to reason that the center carb of a triple Mik/Solex/Weber would have to be jetted substantially different than the other two? Of course, when I would bring that point up, they always backed down a notch. I always contended that with a balance tube (which Steve has) it negates a lot of their theoretical problems with the SU set up. I talked to Bruce at ZT and he sent me a couple pics of Steve's work just before he finished it and I have to say I love the fact he made it look like it was an OEM piece. I have a triple SU handmade manifold that I plan to experiment with also whenever the money for some modifications is in my hands, there is no crossover or balance tube so until I get that fabbed up and welded in, it's going to sit in a box on the shelf.

Hey Jon, do the 900 or so you have on another site count towards the total? Lets see..... that would be almost 7,000 in all....

The main reason I said anything is because you have two straight tubes which would transfer the load of a rear hit thru the lip of the cell and if those two short tubes didn't give, you might end up with them transferring the load right into the chassis rail. At worst, you could end up tearing out the chassis rail which is holding the rear upright in place or even have those straight tubes driven into the diff or mustache bar. I think I'd rather repair bent body panels than to have anything like that happen where you could possibly end up having to re-do part of the suspension. If you mounted those rails transversely between the two chassis rails, you could just weld a flat tab on the rail so you could raise or lower the cell mount to whatever height you needed. I wouldn't put any holes in the metal container, not only because it probably wouldn't pass Tech, but because you would be introducing a raised section (even if it's a fairly blunt object) that the bladder would be riding on and could cause it to fail prematurely. I was just looking at your pic again, and was thinking if ran the tubes side to side between the rails, and did both sides like you have your front mount, (kinda like the diagram below) you would be able to not only tilt it the way you want if you put tabs on the rails, but you could a piece of flat aluminum or flat steel(making a _/ under the cell) and use that as a mount for a diffuser or whatever you planned. You could also vary the distance below the floor as well as the tilt depending on how long you made the / sections. FWIW, when I made the mount for my cell years ago, I welded the tubes across the opening to the chassis rails, and then used angle to mount the lip of the container to, then welded the angle to the cross tubing to set the distance under the floor. Then across the L of the angles on each side, I welded flat steel that was wider than the angle, and welded the top (notched out) section of the flat to the main tubes and then welded the angle to the flat to strenghten the angles on each side of the can. Of course the bad thing was, then I had to drill holes in the flat piece along the side and put grommets in so I could run my hoses to the top of the cell....

Jon, the only thing I would question is putting the mounts lenghtwise like that if you ever plan on road racing at all. If you will never road race it, it's fine for auto-x, but if there's a chance you might road race I think you might end up regretting it. All it would take is one shunt in the rear and you might end up having to repair a lot more damage than would be done if you mounted the cell frame work cross wise between the stock rails in the rear. Most of the Z racers I know always put the mounting rails across the car to the rails, and most of us even put another small tube behind the rear valence since we all know a stock 240 bumper is basically useless in a rear end accident. As far as the lid for fueling, I used a flat piece of steel sheet, and spot welded it to some small diameter square tubing to make a strong lid. Then using some scrap angle, I went around the opening and spot welded that to the sheet of steel I used for the opening cover. I did it this way so that the lid sat inside the L of the angle and just used some cheap stick on weatherstrip to seal it and used a strong spring loaded latch like they use to mount body panels on some GT cars to hold it. In case the car ever ended up on its roof, it would at least prevent the majority of any gas that might leak from coming in the car, and in case of fire, it would help contain it to some extent since it would have to make a couple turns before it got inside the cockpit. I used steel sheet to cover my opening and spot welded it in places and used bolts in others and used ribbon seam sealer to make sure it wasn't going to let in exhaust fumes. As far as where to mount the cell, without having a set of scales to set the F/R weights the way you want it, I think I'd be inclined to keep it as close to the diff as possible while still giving you plenty of room to get in and work on the diff. I've got a cell in the ITS parts car that is so close to the mustache bar that I have to use an open end wrench on the diff mounting bolts and that is a major PITA but that is also a larger cell too....

Katman, there have been rumors in the Tech shed for the past couple seasons about the Autopower cages and the fact the main hoop doesn't go to the floor/rocker panel. There's only one problem, the Autopower cage is the spec cage for Spec-RX7.

Warren, there are no repair panels for that section, your best bet would be to pull them off a parts car. The only other alternative is going to be fabbing them up yourself or have someone do it for you. Unless you got really lucky and found a NOS piece (which would be like finding a winning Lotto ticket IMO) And to answer the question about the rear inner fenders, MSA used to sell repair panels, but since it's been years since I bought mine, I have no idea if they still have it or not.

OK, I figured it was just out of the picture. Hmm, they kept the diagonal the same all these years. I was under the "ass"umption that they were going to make it a full width diagonal but obviously they didn't One word of caution, when you are fitting your forward tube, take a little extra time and make sure you have it mounted to the main hoop as high as possible for as much headroom as possible while your sitting in the seat. Mine was so close to my helmet, that after installing the roll bar padding it ended up as a headrest in a right hand turn and it got annoying really fast.

I'd cut the flat bar out and do like Jeff did and add a tube between the rear diagonals so you'll be ITS legal and you can put it at the height you need for your belts once you get the seat at the height you want. With an extra tube back there, you'll actually benefit a bit by having a legal rear strut tower bar because of where the rear legs mount and it will be legal. You can also weld a thick flat plate to that bar and mount the shoulder straps with either a bolt thru mount or an eyebolt and clip on, or just do a wrap around on the bar itself. By the looks of the seat height, you're probably going to want to bolt that seat as close to the floor as possible or you may end up with your helmet against the main hoop. The Autopower cage I had in my car, I had to mount my aluminum seat on 1 inch square tubing on the floor for head room. My question is, where is the diagonal in the main hoop?

The B pillar "crack" shows up because that was one area on the chassis that should have been seam welded at the factory instead of a bunch of little spot welds. If you've ever seen just how little contact there is with some of the spot welds on the Z chassis, you'd wonder how they have lasted as long as they have. It's not so much the lead that was used in that seam that is cracking, it's just pulled away from one panel due to the movement in the seam due to twisting of the panels. Some cars never show that crack, yet some others had it when they were only a few years old.

http://www.datsunhistory.com/Sharp.html

For anyone who thinks the Jeep Wranglers have a safe full cage, take a look at the slideshow of this recent accident, especially picture number 9. http://www.nbc4.com/newsarchive/10479153/detail.html It might be safe in a low speed, off road rollover, but don't think for a minute it's a safe cage at highway speeds. The front half of the cage peeled back, the shoulder straps holding them into their seats were attached to the cage, and both of them were thrown from the vehicle. Sadly, the parents of these two teenagers probably thought it was a safe vehicle for a high school student to drive. This is a good example of why a solid chassis is required as a foundation, well thought out mounts to the chassis, and most of all, a competent welder needs to do the installation.

Paul's got me beat by a couple cars.... but I've still got ummmm... well....... too many?

I had a Craftsman upright that was a little larger than the one you are looking at, and it drove me nuts with all the noise, lack of air...you name it. It worked fine with impact wrenches, but using a sander, air drill, HVLP gun, blasting cabinet? Nope.... ran continuously and still had to stop and wait for it to catch up. Oh, did I mention the noise of those Craftsman units? It will drive you nuts in no time, not to mention annoy any close neighbors. It was a Christmas present too...but I still grew to hate it. Found a nice Ranch Hand (made by Cambell Hausfeld, just painted green) at Tractor Supply that was on sale for around 400 dollars that put the same specs as the IR compressor sitting right next to it for twice the price. I think mine is a 7hp/60 gallon (10.3 at 90, 11.8 at 40, 135max) and it works perfectly even when using the blasting cabinet.

The best way to get ahold of Charlie is to call him, his number is on his website. He doesn't answer emails as quickly as some of us who are online seemingly all the time.... As far as selling one pan singly, I'd say probably, but then, I haven't talked to Charlie in a quite, so who knows....

No picture, but it's an old video worth watching.... http://flurl.com/entry/view/930785/1971_C_and_B_Production_SCCA_Runoffs Oh, and those darned old Alfas did pretty good in the old days of B Sedan too.......

Understated English muscle, and this one is a hybrid..... http://www.lynxmotors.co.uk/evo0402.htm

Better idea now that I think about it would be to lay the tube down and attach it to the X where it comes thru the bulkhead. I was thinking if you made a long mounting plate, you could run it on the floor from above the suspension mounting point you want to reinforce and have it end a couple inches up the tunnel. That way, you could mount the tube closer to the curve and lay it down more horizontal to go to the leg of the X where it came thru the bulkhead. I know why you want to put that extra tube in the main hoop, but if you compare your pic to the most other cages where that kicker tube to the top of the strut tower is mounted to the main hoop I think you'll understand. Yours is mounted at the bottom of the bend in the main hoop whereas most at mounted near the top of the bend very close to the roof, which means yours already has more of a load path for forces from the door bars than most other cages. The only other thing I see that I would want to do is to gusset the cage to the chassis wherever possible, if it's within the rules of whatever class or sanctioning body you plan on running. Sorry, I don't have a program on here that I can do drawings with.... never had a lot of use for one so I've never bothered with this computer...

Jon, I'm thinking that with the X brace in there, the horizontal tubes from the main hoop to the crossbar between the struts are redundant and possibly not going to add much. The reason I say this is, the crossbar is already strengthened by the X and the strut towers themselves are already triangulated from your main hoop. If you had mounted the diagonal from your main hoop back to the strut towers from roof level on the main hoop, you might possibly see some benefit from those extra tubes, but yours are mounted down on the main hoop a bit lower than most. With the X in there, why not take those short tubes from the floor and mount them more vertical to the leg of the X and mount them on a long pad that curves up the trans tunnel a bit and do away with the one tube from the top of the trans tunnel up to the X?

It would have been nicer if I had been a few years older when I moved here to VA and could have gotten a job with them when they were still racing the Trans Am XJS and then the GTP Jaguars, which in my mind are still possibly the most beautiful race cars of all time. I had begun building an ITS 280Z in late 88, so the money was important and none of the race teams I talked to could come close to offering what I was making then, the only one that came close was Tom Walkinshaw, Peter Ferrell bluntly told me I didn't want a job with him.... I'll PM you a funny story that happened during that IMSA race weekend.

Sorry Ernie, I should have stated that the factory Audi's never used the V-8's in the US, when the factory pulled the plug on the Group44 effort, I lost interest in the Audi's completely. During the time that Group44 was campaigning the Audi's, I worked around the corner from Tullius' shop and was trying to get a job there, even if it was to sweep the floors. The sad part is, IIRC correctly, it was also the last road racing effort of Group44. It wasn't long after that they tried their hand at "Smashcar" Busch series racing with sponsorship from one of the local apple companies, and then the race shop was taken over by Tom Milner who then built up PTG.

RacerX, I hate to disagree with you about the Audi's but they didn't have a V-8. How about an inline 5 with twin (rather large;-) ) turbo's. I watched those cars at an IMSA race at Summit Point, WV back in the good old days, and it was sensory overload with those Group44 Audi's and the 300ZX Twin Turbo's GTO cars on the track at the same time. Just being able to watch Hans Stuck, and Hurley Haywood flinging those 4 wheel drive monsters around was incredible.

For every brand of clutch you find, you'll find one person who hates it and one who swears by it. It's all in who's behind the wheel and how they use it. I've use ATC, Valeo and even used a cheap one from Advance Auto (who knows who made that one) and none of them were any better or any worse than the one before. I put a Centerforce 1 in my 71 just because I had it sitting in a drawer and hated seeing that 200 dollars sitting there not being used, and one of these days I'll get the car on the road and get to use it... I've seen ITS racers using Centerforce, OEM replacement, stock discs, puck style discs, combinations of stock PP and puck discs, Centerforce PP and stock style discs and puck discs.......you name it. Wish I could find that bookmark, I had a site that sold nearly every type of clutch disc and different types of pressure plates to fit a Z.

Jon, I'm not sure but isn't Matt Merrill from Vegas? I know I've read a couple replies over there that were from people in Nevada.... and yes, I know Matt just sold his racecar....wish I had the money to put that one in my garage.... I'm not a member of WCZR (maybe cuz I'm on the east coast) but I peruse the board once in a while to get a laugh at some of the things ZV gets himself into....

Sorry Buck, for some reason I didn't get the email notification that you had replied. I've got those welded diffs in the shop for the ITS car, a 3:70 and a 4:11 both (not sure what size ring gear either of them have).... but no 3:90 right now. I contacted a couple people out your way to see if they knew where you might find one, gimme a couple days while I wait for their replies. There's one racer right there in Vegas that Jon should know from WCZR, maybe he could be of help searching for what you want.