seattlejester

Well first off, welcome to the forum. Second, this is a prime example of a picture is worth 1000 words. Third, the obvious really rears the head, more details are needed, what mounts? The factory mounts? Swap mounts? Once again a picture is worth a lot of words here. Fourth, the other obvious answers come to mind, are you still running the over the top manifold? If so, then a front facing intake manifold would solve your problem. Are your mounts too tall? Then swapping to lower mounts or fabricating some would be the solution. Do you just want the hood to close? Cut a hole in it.

I would have to say there is no best. That is actually a forum rule. There is "better suited for certain application," but there really is no best. Even the cheaper coilovers like cx, bc, or the megan coils that mckinney supplies should last about 20k miles. You really haven't narrowed down anything, you have basically listed all the activities available. If that is the case, then I think a spring and strut setup may be more suited for an all around setup. If price is a factor, I think CX racing has the cheapest setup $870, the TTT setup is down right affordable if you don't plan on doing the welding and sectioning yourself as they will buy your cores if you want to do it that way and it runs about $1600 I think. BC is late to the game as they say. zccjdm made the adapters a first, mckinney also offers a megan coilover with adapters, then BC, then I think CX.

Sorry for the delay, I'm planning on heading to my car tomorrow and grab them and take pictures. I want to say it looked like maybe 1/4 or 3/8 of an inch in the middle with the two covers being held flange to flange. I think you guys are making a good point that it may be minor enough to compress especially given it's relative length and small width. The concern with lapping or flattening the surface with a sander is that it is a valley type of gasket so the flange has a groove for the gasket to sit in. I would just install it, but I put the engine far back enough where the stock hood latch is actually preventing me from installing it as the breather holes were moved to the back by the creator. I have my nutserts on the way to install the brackets for my new latches, so I figured if there was a recommended way to relax or unwarp the head before they went on I could save myself some trouble.

It really is all in there. Well to start good for you, reading is an excellent way to become informed. Whoa whoa whoa, it really isn't the way to go. Adjustable coilovers (my assumption to what you are referring to) have draw backs as well, it depends on your application. Well those two are indeed setup options, there is also mckinney, sakura garage, arizona z car, and a couple others. Actually I think TTT takes the cake with easy install. You just buy the complete ones and ship back your old housings as cores, bolt them in and done. If you are thinking sectioning is more work then I feel you are probably overlooking the aspect where you also need to cut the housing and weld with the BC setup as well. They are not straight bolt in. The BC thread is filled with people and their experience with installs. Although I'm not sure many people have a lot of miles on them given how recently they came out in the scheme of things. What have you found with searching? What are you looking for information wise? Quality is also a very broad statement, what specifically are you looking for? Their paint finish isn't the best I can tell you off the bat, their packaging is decent. I think all of them had QC stickers.

Those clamps look like they would be good for spreading some of the load. I'm concerned that if I tried too hard it might pull the threads out of the head. I'm not sure a thicker gasket is a possibility, but maybe some RTV or something might help if it starts leaking.

I'm thinking in the engine bay. I had to weld in new panels for the battery area so the wiring just got sheet metal screws for ground. I probably should weld some nuts, or maybe these inserts to make a good connection. I only have a roll bar unfortunately, and that is just a pretty poor bolt in design. Cool, I'll take it over to PM's.

Hmm looks like his is almost just a large nut. I really like the usage of them, so I think I'll grab the two different tools. I saw some guy making threaded holes into cardboard so I think these will be pretty fun to play with. I've used plenty of sheet metal screws to hold up various things, but I think this approach is probably going to be neater, safer, and stronger. I'm almost tempted to use them for some sheet metal screw grounds I have, but if it came to that I think I would weld them to assure body contact.

Hey guys, I've been searching the internet for quite a while and haven't been able to pin point a real answer. I bought some aluminum valve covers for my 7m. They are essentially one offs. They have a slight bow in the middle. How would I go about fixing that? Online I have found people suggest hitting traditional valve covers with a hammer, but I think that applies to steel and this one is aluminum. Others have suggested putting it to a belt sander but this one has a valley on the flange that retains the rubber gasket. Is there a way to take a slight bend out of a large piece of aluminum? The seller assured me it isn't a problem, but I'm worried about leaking oil from the head or stripping a bolt trying to tighten it down. I was thinking of maybe ratchet strapping the center down to something more robust, but I'm not sure if that would take out the bend or if it would just bounce back. Some people have suggested adding heat into the equation, but others have said that it could mar up the aluminum if not distributed evenly. Just figured I would take your guys thoughts on the matter.

After much searching, it seems like the extreme lows will go indeed quite low (bottom out the frame rails if desired) so I don't think I'll mess with maximizing the minimum height adjustment. Also after spending some time with a grinder I can kind of see why a notch could be difficult. It really isn't just a notch, more like a parabola, the sides need to be ground down quite a bit in addition to the main hump in order to assure a real close fit. Having learned how to weld it from the rear, I turned up my gas a bit and was pretty easily able to weld the adapter with just additional stickout on the welder. I welded a nice wide pattern so I don't have reservations about having to revisit the fronts. Pretty much done welding for the time being. Had to stop to go and install some rotors and brake pads in the daily. Need to cleanup still along with flip the car around, but pretty much all good to go in the front, need to stop by the powdercoaters sometime next week to see about getting some of the rear end pieces coated up.

Thanks for the replies guys, I was up till 2 or 3AM looking at my options. I think I want to work with steel, while I'm sure aluminum is fine. I have read some people pull the threads out and then you have drill it out and resize it which then means if you are doing a series on the outside (flares for example) you have one that is offsize. If all else fails by using steel riv nuts, I can drill it out and fish it out with a magnet and I can add a tack weld on the outside if it decides to spin or something of that nature. Some of the sizes I will be running will be larger 1/4-20 which makes me lean towards the two handed ones, but for small little brackets that hold catch cans or my oil filter relocator etc, the small one handed one seems to be the way to go. I have both the one hand and the two hand manual hydraulic ones added to my cart along with a couple hundred extra riv nuts in both metric and standard, looks to be about 130$ which is still cheaper then one of the nicer one handed units. My christmas gift to myself .

Hmm, fair point, they each do have their own uses. I'll pick up the HF one and use it as a bench mark. Worse comes to worse, I can figure out what I find lacking. Some of the smaller ones are tubes/nuts which seems a bit silly to pay for. I think I can make those easily enough. Thanks for chiming in Andy.

Hey guys, Looking into getting a rivnut tool. I have to make some brackets for my quick release latches and possibly some flares in the future as well as revising some poorly placed self tapping screws. I fear some of the places will be difficult to put a backing plate onto so there is some allure to the rivnut. Anyone have some recommendation? I'd like to get a tool instead of the simple wrenching them down ones. The astro 1442 caught my eye, I'm a little worried that it might be long, but from what I'm reading the longer two handle ones are easier to use then the single hand ones, and the single hand ones will struggle to pull larger bolts.

^What he said. Use proper tubing, not pipe. You won't need more than a foot I imagine that is a couple bucks at any metal supply place. Just noticed, are those adjusters at the bottom? That is going to be a real pain in the butt to adjust.

In retrospect, I should have seen where the coilovers bottom out in the adapter and see if I am missing out on any space. Hopefully the purchase of the extreme low version will allow give me the range I desire. Will have to check for the fronts.

I assembled the hybrid axle (1995 WD21 housing, WD21 spider gear, WD21 shaft, Febest G35 spider gear, Herra 280zx turbo housing) then had to take it all apart and reassemble it as I realized I forgot to install the inner clamps. Axles have been greased backup with the clamps in the proper place with the boots, just waiting to be tightened up and wiped down waiting for install. Next I finally decided to weld on the coil-overs. I cut down the uprights to 45mm as the instructions stated indicated with a scribe mark using a micrometer. The rear went in easy enough, the BC coilover adapter was a tight fit and after wiping down both the hub and the adapter I slipped it on and made sure it was seated and put a bead all the way around. I'm tempted to run a double or triple pass over it, but I can't imagine it breaking in any way since the only way to break it would be to pull away from the hub and I can't imagine any force that would accomplish that. I suppose it could lean and pull at the weld, but it is also lined up with the tube so that would still probably not happen. Still need to wire brush it and look for any weak points before painting so I'll have another chance to review. A note is that it can get quite tight with a mig setup as you near the stub axle housing. I tend to run a little extra gas anyways so the additional sickout needed to weld it was not too problematic. Just make sure you hit the hub before you hit the adapter or you are going to have to build from the adapter back to the hub which will make a much larger weld. The fronts are a little more problematic. The front hubs have a little hump that prevents a cylinder from sitting flat, so other manufacturers machine a little clearance so make it easier to seat, BC does not do us the favor. I already came into this knowing this would have to be done and I'll credit this to BC still being relatively new to our chassis, still would have been a nice touch though. I'll have to set aside some time to attack it with a grinding wheel and test fitting, but I expect it will go on similarly quickly. Plan is after finishing to just primer and paint the uprights, or else I would have to strip the adapters for powder coat and I'm not quite willing at the moment. Further plan given how I have seen these types of coilovers rust is to run anti seize where relevant and to spray some chassis wax in side the strut housing to prevent any moisture from pooling between the adapter and the upright. Once these guys are sitting pretty it will be time for the big install. Will have to clean up my space a bit add more lighting and I'm actually planning on getting some carpet to lay on. Some scrap carpet for a couple bucks at a warehouse place can make it actually quite nice to lie on concrete, and if it gets dirty you are out a few bucks so not the end of the world.

Looks like a rheostat of some sort, it regulates voltage or current (sorry kind of out of it at the moment). The green wire I believe is the universal power supply to the gauges so the signal wire. My guess would be that this reduces voltage to the fan or increases voltage. Really can't tell much more then that. Your guess of a temperature control would not be far off I imagine.

Tube not pipe.

You can have something like that made pretty easily, much less then $150 a pair. A guy with a drill press could make a spacer if you could run longer studs, if not you would have to run a style similar to what you posted a picture of which still wouldn't be too hard to make.

The originator of this design (myron, his thread is linked at the beginning, refer to page 4 of his thread) used chromoly. For the thickness of tube he was working with, his welding instructor informed him it would be alright to weld without any special pre-treating, I think if you step up from his wall thickness you have to pre heat-treat, so your friend is not wrong, as far as I know Myron has not had any problems and he has several track days on his car. In fact a company bought his design and started making them for market, although I have heard mixed reviews about their workmanship. For my slightly altered design, I used regular DOM steel, of a larger diameter and of a thicker wall thickness following instruction from other members on this thread. I think Jmortenson mig'd his arms and they are also not chromoly.

M50 x 2.0 is a pretty common coilover thread pitch. For a fastener the rule of thumb is 1.5 times the diameter so 75mm or 3 inches of engagement. I'm not sure how the rule changes with a tube and such. I know JCC had made their collars too short on one of their runs and they came up with a spacer insert thing, not sure exactly how it would work, probably cutting the tube down, using some of the inner thread to build a male female adapter kind of situation most likely.

If you search autopower it will come up with a few hits the site. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEdfuWoSzM8&feature=youtu.be Has a walkaround with the bar in question, looks like a pretty decent setup.

Goodness, I'm glad I went with a tablet. Has about 500 times more memory to boot. Keep us updated, I have to route a heater sometime and I was thinking of redoing my dash sometime as well, always nice to see more examples.

I finally unpackaged mine. I am planning on doing the same as you did with moving the spacer on the bottom. For stacking the spacers, is that the correct orientation? Or does it not really matter since the nut on the bottom hits the wall before the spacer could come into play.

Por15 will smoke when you weld near it and become almost tar like if my memory serves me correctly. They have some flexible nozzles that you can attach to spray cans to reach areas further away. I suppose the inside of the frame rail further in could benefit from the por-15, but I think the immediate area near the weld should have maybe zinc primer at the most. When welding something closed, I noticed the smoke liked to roll around, as I got close to closing it off it would come up and cause some bubbling of the weld on occasion. I do get the concern of closing something off leaving the inside untreated.

Your requirements kind of put you at the smaller turbo sizing. It really depends on what you plan on doing. If money is that much of a consideration, why don't you just go with a rebuilt turbo from the L28et? It will put the motor comfortably up higher around 200ish, some room to grow especially with an intercooler and a boost controller, and you shouldn't be outflowing your injectors. You could buy the conversion down pipe which would be an additional savings.