seattlejester

Just saw this. Guy is local, met him a couple times, pretty good dude. http://www.speedhunters.com/2018/07/beginners-luck-a-supercharged-v8-datsun-z/

It is nice to have to dial in any slight tweaks in the chassis especially if you messed around with the TC bucket area and such.

I'm just excited to see cars being driven hard. I invited a friend so pretty sure we are going to try for the August date first. Didn't get my cat in and not having driven it in a while I've forgotten how loud it was. Going to see if a muffler shop can squeeze me in.

For minor adjustments that seems to be a viable option, just make sure to use a tube end adapter and reinforce it. I saw someone weld a nut onto a plate and run a rod end through that, ended up bowing the plate and wrecking the alignment while driving. If you want to bigger with the adjustments though there is probably some room for change. The TC rod bolts interfere with steering at as the bottom of the upright hits the bolt heads. So engineering a clevis attachment point may be beneficial like the TTT GTX-2 arms or the AE arms. If you want to play with track width those would be a better option as well.

Toe would be my only input, when I dialed all of mine out my car went from darty to a bit numb, still goes where you want it to for sure, but it used to feel like it would turn on a dime, granted as you say the downfall was I had little confidence running it straight.

My friend is similar he suggests 3d printing for a lot of solutions, granted we both agree if the car sits out in the sun PLA won't last, and I haven't played around with ABS yet. I am planning on printing a pretty trick piece for welding the power steering shafts together. 17mm to 16mm adapter with a slot in the middle so I can weld while having the pieces in perfect alignment. Given I have a welder handy and had some bolts and nuts I made an adjustable stop. Unfortunately my first step was to take up the slack stop that I had maxed out earlier, so I made the clutch even with the brake again. It is surprising, given the arc the pedal travels you gain a lot more throw up top for small pedal movement. In other words your engagement point can shift what feels like almost an inch or more from moving adjusting the rod back 1/4 of an inch. That unfortunately meant I couldn't have the bolt and nut stack, so I cut the legs shorter and drilled through the wheel well. The engagement point is maybe an inch or so off of the stop now. The annoying part? Pretty much lines up almost perfect with where the stock one was.

Take the ROI 548510 2 and 1/8th inch exhaust tubing and drill out three holes. This is a pretty crude piece so take a moment to pry the pieces into shape to fit the bearing or if it is too wide tap it in so the bearing is a pretty tight fit. Then weld the tube to the bearings. This does output quite a lot of heat very quickly so have a rag handy to cool it or you will cook all the grease out. In an ideal setup you would use open bearings and add grease afterwards. I chose to make a jig off of the old column so that I kept the subtleties in the correct orientation. From what I can tell the columns are different between the 240z and the 280z as I don't have the 2 hole setup like socorob has. I cut my tube a little past the retainer bushing. If you slide up the bushing it reveals 3 screws that retain the lower stop for the bushing. Here is the stop removed. With the stop removed and the cir-clip removed you can tap out the column, this piece is what I am planning on retaining. Similarly on the saturn column if you undo the cir-clip and undo the 3 bolts to the motor housing... You can remove the housing for the shaft. Here is the saturn's upper column. I think socorob took the bottom of this shaft which is splined and used it as a coupler to the datsun shaft. This is the datsun shaftI just don't think there is enough room to do this at least in a 240z and still retain the collapsible feature in the lower saturn column (we loose a couple inches since our mounting plate is 4 bolt so we can't quite cut as high on the column. I think the plan will be to cut this spline off of the datsun, then weld it onto the saturn shaft coming out of the motor housing. It seems like it will be the best way and additionally the safest as it retains the collapsable feature. I took the stock fire wall plate and cut it up if you can grind out the raised bit the 2 and 1/8th tube almost fits perfectly and allows for a little bit of movement as well. The hole spacing for the 240z is 70mm center to center. The plate itself is 100mm. On the 240z if you take out the ridge in the middle it is a flat plate, may be pretty easy to fabricate rather then reusing the old one. Also just a reference photo for the plugs. With the ECU facing up and looking at the plugs. The blue plug that feeds the motor goes to the right. The black plug main power and ground feed goes in the middle. The grey controller plug goes to the left.

Oh, exciting >.<

Couple of interesting problems that came up. I couldn't figure out why my car was idling so high. From start up it just held really high RPM. Then I figured out that I moved the engine forward, which in turn shortens the throttle cable of course. Luckily when I installed the cable I added quite a bit of extra into the clevis point, so rolling out a bit more than an inch I have my idle again. Couldn't bleed the clutch for the life of me. My master seemed fine, and I could see movement from the moment I started applying pressure to the pedal, but it moved half an inch or so. The 350z supposedly runs the same 5/8 master, but since I wasn't getting enough movement I stepped up to a 3/4. When even that didn't yield results I was really at a loss. I even took it out and bench bled the whole system. Then I looked under at the clutch pedal. Surprisingly, since our fulcrum is really high up the actuating rod moves almost less then an inch. Putting that together with the fact the slave is a fairly large 3/4 as well made me realize I needed more travel. I read an old post by miles I think that said he needed to cut the stop off the floor. So I started with that, then I rolled the slack stop (above the pedal) all the way in. With the additional travel I was getting the fork to fully cycle. It is an extra tough pressure plate, but it requires a fair amount of effort probably since I changed the master bore as well. Part of me is curious what would happen if I swapped back to the 5/8 with the extended travel. Annoyingly it seems that I went over kill on the travel as well, the engagement point sits about 1/2 an inch or so above where the stop was, so I'll have to add another one there. Although I may be tempted to move the slack stop a bit more since the clutch now sits higher than the brake pedal which may have put me into the clutch stop anyway. Need to make some exhaust hangers, but I was able to salvage my old exhaust. I had some grand ideas, but maybe not for the time being. I'm tempted not to even install my cat, maybe have a shop take car of that for me as holding up and supporting exhaust is very tricky. Engine mount may have to wait a bit as well. New intercooler mounts are definitely on the menu. Removable radiator support may have to wait. I may attempt the power steering this weekend. A friend offered an alignment rack so I'll probably install my knuckles down there.

I hope they used bedding posts.

That is good, reading the class rules was kind of giving me a head ache. Just finished trans, need to bleed stuff, and mount the exhaust. Not sure if I can put my cat in given the space. Tempted to try to finish the power steering and shortened knuckles for this. So $15 weekend member ship + $35 per day of competition + $20 per day for fun runs at the end. $85 just to run the competition both days or $125 for both competition and fun runs.

Hey guys, I just finished the install of my CD009. Bled the clutch and found out it doesn't seem to have enough throw (I can see the slave while bottoming out the clutch pedal (movement from when I start to press it) and it stops after maybe 1/2 an inch or so. Looking it up the 350z runs an 11/16 clutch master, I thought our 5/8 would be sufficient, but looks like with the uprated clutch disc it doesn't have enough throw to push it under pressure. I'm tempted to go a bit on the big side and am looking at the 7/8 unit, but I'm a bit concerned that may be too much. Settle at 3/4? Thoughts?

What are you guys running for classes?

I think it should be an open event. I don't know how much the portland SCCA charges, but I think it is like $60 or something. The only real struggle I think is the long distance down.

Oh yea, I was going to say a both option would be nice. Similarly I'll be trying for both. Hoping my cat and turbo will muffle enough to keep me under limit if not I'll bring a muffle tip just in case.

Hmm haven't heard of that before. I've heard of the rack rotating, usually from the missing pipe clamp, but short of the bolts being loose or the bushings being super deteriorated that seems odd since the rack is captive. Is the steering gritty? Might be the rack needs a rebuild. I have 225's on my car and it tracks straight on flat roads, it does tend to find groves on more traveled roads though. Another passing thought is a bolt check may be in order, if the cross member bolts are loose it could be slipping the assembly sideways or something of that nature. I don't remember if the stock setup has a bearing on the strut, I imagine it must since it rotates, but that could indeed be gone and causing a drag.

^Ooh looking forward to your results. The plug and play part has me the most intrigued. I'd love a bit more assistance with braking. It would be nice to ask them, but given their popularity I feel the response would be buried almost immediately.

Searching on autozone I'm getting a few different hits. Some are 11 inches which is way too wide, but some are 8.75 inches which seem more in line with what would fit at least in the early Z's https://www.autozone.com/brakes-and-traction-control/brake-power-booster/duralast-reman-brake-power-booster/232665_633359_7889_32453 They specifically said bolt on, which is very appealing.

^ I agree, both are useful. Get the proper LED flashers and enjoy both benefits. I guess I was thinking more from a modernish car perspective.

The happy byproduct is reducing load, but the main purpose usually is for brightness. As I learned you need an LED flasher not just an electronic flasher. I have electronic flashers in my car and those don't work with LED's in certain situations. I ended up swapping to some normal bulbs to trigger them correctly. If I was willing I could spend the time to put in load resistors and keep the brighter bulbs, or I could buy correct LED flashers and it would also work fine.

Yup someone commented on how good my car sounded, I was more than a couple blocks away from them. If I was maxing out my turbo and putting down 5-600hp I may be more inclined to leave the exhaust uncorked, but this round of mods is all about drivability with power steering, smoother transmission. A quieter exhaust definitely has its place in the formula.

Top two bolts are nigh inaccessible even with the engine moved forward, here is where an extra inch or so would be worth gold. The CD009 has a thick flange right where the bolts go through, probably 30mm or so that moves it even further back. I can get bolts in and started using trickery, but no chance in getting them tight. Tempted not to run them, either that or I'll have to resort to dropping the trans and hoping to get a long extension on them each time.

Started with ordering all the parts for this hopefully last overhaul for a while. Looking for a shift knob made me realize, I have a printer? Why not make one? Friend offered me his garage, so I went ahead and started with the swap. Unfortunately the trans is massive and my design goals is to always have the exhaust tucked up, it always surprises people when I drive right over speed bumps. So I just went big with making room. That meant moving my brake proportioning valve and remounting. Figured while I was at it to just go for it. Overhauled my brake setup, no more brass hardware store fittings. Stainless steel elbows rated for higher pressure, and a high end swagelok 3000psi ball valve for parking brake. While I was at it I also changed my drift stick into a similar style as I had before for fitment. The one before wouldn't lock the brakes and barely held the car while also being sloppy. So hopefully my built setup succeeds in locking up the rear wheels, and when I need to I can set the ball valve to hold the car and keep it running. Also made room for the massive behemoth of a CD009. I really like the placement. The shifter is not so far back it is uncomfortable (I was reaching with the R154 so this is still awkward, but not quite as much as the stock R154). I also got a chance to move the fuel lines over to the the driver side away from the exhaust. Not sure how exhaust is going to work here, I think I will have to give up my goal of getting it tucked in the trans tunnel and just have it hang a bit lower. Still probably higher than your average low car. I did order a catalytic converter to try and muffle the shriek that comes from this engine. Getting to an age where that seems to have faded on me a bit. Kind of reminds me of a small dog, huge bark and no bite, more bite than most cars, but still a little too much sound for presence. Hopefully the cat serves to muffle a bit and should make it nicer for the environment to boot. If that fails I have some ideas on making a baffled tail pipe. Drive shaft shop failed me so no driveshaft. Planning on buttoning up the trans install, maybe get a bit of the exhaust setup started and finish up the mounts and shortening of the intercooler and radiator pipes. Also struggling with some bolts on the trans side. I'm pretty sure I have an early plate which has a lot of faults, two of which are that the bottom two bolts are tapped for a massive m12x1.75, while there is almost no room for the head. Going to try and acquire some allen head socket bolts. The top two bolts seem like even more of an issue. I wasn't able to get the trans quite forward enough to make those easy access. So the question is do I use them. I know some people don't run the top bolts just for ease. Getting them in is going to require dropping the tail end of the trans enough to snake some extensions up there, same thing for getting them off. Thoughts?

Adapter was frozen, I didn't want to heat the flywheel up too much as I didn't want to ruin the RMS. I think it really just needs to be machined down. The flywheel is machined to index on the crank so that really can't be changed. I'm sure if you install the flywheel and super freeze the adapter it may slide in easier, granted in another post someone else said to take sand paper to it as well so must be a normal thing.

Seems like I have an earlier plate/kit. Pretty disappointed with quite a few bits of it. The starter bolts were designed to thread in from the transmission side of the adapter plate. That means if something goes wrong with the starter you have to drop this heavy ass transmission. I welded two socket bolts in there so that I can service the starter without doing so. I think the newer kits use a stud, granted most ones are now the A340 swap. There were no locating dowels on my plate. Newer kits seems to have room for them. The pilot adapter is also super odd. The OD of the adapter is a friction fit with the flywheel. Given that you have to install this bushing like 3/8 of an inch out to get 1/2 an inch or so of engagement with the input shaft having it friction fit forces the flywheel to knock it in as you try to get it on. The crank face (where the flywheel sits is 9mm behind the bell housing flange. The adapter plate is 16mm. Leaving about 3/8 of an inch of gap yields 25mm from the flywheel flange. The input shaft sits about 12-13mm proud of the bell housing. You can see the problem. I didn't measure, but I know you can put it in at least another 1/4 of an inch or 6mm. That leaves barely 6mm of engagement for the input shaft. Not a huge deal, but a poor design. Making the adapter sit proud and the flywheel a non interference fit would remove all questions. Kind of reiterates testing the stuff before you put it on the engine, I shaved my adapter on while it was on the crank so the flywheel could go on without forcing it in deeper. I've seen others put it in after, I worry that the double friction when you try to get it past the flywheel and into the crank would require enough force to deform the aluminum adapter. You also have to drill out holes in the transmission as the threads in the plate are huge and the bolts won't fit without massive hole enlargement. The guy who had this kit before me either modded his engine or only had a couple bolts holding the engine together as the ones he included don't work for 4 or so of the 7 holes.