Alf

I've had an ipod mini for a little over a year now and I used it all the time, it worked great and I never abused it. One day a few weeks ago I accidentally droped a bottle of gatorade on it from about three inches high while it was sitting on my car seat. It didn't work for a couple days so I just let it die and plugged it into my computer and it worked good except it only played out of one earphone, which didn't bother me because I mainly used it in my car with one of those transmitters. Well tonight I had just walked into my shop to do some work on my hot rod and I plug it into my radio and I get nothing, so I tap it around a little, this same thing happened before and lightly tapping it fixed the problem, for a while anyway, but not this time. I ended up "dropping" it a little too hard and it cracked the screen. At this point I was steaming mad, one; because it stopped working and two; because I destroyed it, not to mention it cost about $300 and it only lasted a year, heck the car I drive only cost me $500. So after I regain my composure and retain myself from really destroying it, I walked out to my car and plugged it in to the trasmitter, beleive it or not it still worked, so I left it there. I walked back inside and broke out my classic casette colection and popped in Stop Making Sense by The Talking Heads and go to work. Not one minute later the first song ends and it makes this weird sluring sound and starts ticking. It took me about one second to figure out that my POS $9.99 Wal Mart radio just ate my 20+ year old tape. So i pop open the tape deck and find the tape with its guts ripped out. This was the last straw for me, I just lost it, I grabbed the radio, and ripped the cord out of the wall, raised her high and let her fly straight into the ground. It resembled a shrapnel bomb going off with peices of Chinese plastic flying everywhere. So after I stomped on it a little bit i went back to preparing my freshly aquired VG30E for my hot rod. About fifteen minutes later after I calmed down and had a few laughs at myself I cleaned up the mess I had made. I then spent the next hour thinking how they could sell a radio for $9.99, there was alot of stuff in there! But wait there's more. On my way home my iPod surrendered it's life never to be heard again. R.I.P. Uhooo now I have to listen to the radio noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!! Sometimes I feel like I'm in the Truman show and there is someone videotaping my every move and playing tricks on me to make the show more interesting. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the story, be carefull out there, electronics are everywhere. Here's the aftermath, it kinda looks like a face laughing at me...

you just got another vote, I'll vote again tommorow

It's about $2.11 here in KS, which is fine by me with my little escort, $24 to fill it up and 36 mpgs around town. My mom tells me it's in the low $1.80s back home in Jersey, but get it while it's hot cause it will be going up in about a month.

I think it all depends on the car and what it is used for. The best solution is to have a very light chassis with a good power to weight ratio, like grumpy stated earlier. But it's not just weight, it's where the weight is. For example, take my 69 Camaro. It has a 355 that is a tick over 400chp(about 340whp), which is a fairly simple, powerfull N/A engine, but the car weighs almost 3500 lbs, it's a tank. Not only does that hinder straight line performance, but it hurts every other performance aspect as well; braking, cornering, fuel milleage, you get the point. Now enter this data into an E.T. calculator and you come up with a 12.59 @ 106 mph, fairly respectable for a 40 year old tank. But now say I've transplanted the Camaro's 355 into my Z31 which weighs about 3100 lbs; it now does a 12.15 @ 110 mph, an enormous improvment for such a simple mod (in concept). The v8 Z31>>>>>> http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=108065&highlight=pics+z31+v8 Her's another scenario: I suddenly have a death-wish, so I drop the Camaro's 400 + hp small block into my yet unfinished hot rod project. I'm not sure of the exact weight of the final car yet so we will just estimate it to be 2000 lbs. This is where you can really see my point, now this simple street engine delivers race car performance; it goes a 10.50 @ 127 mph. And not only does straight line performance increase but so does everything else, the car becomes more fun to drive. Here's this work in progress>>>> http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=114405&highlight=vg30+powered+hot%2Frat+rod Obviously this experiment was a little extreme, but you get the point. Another thing that is sometimes overlooked is the fact that rotating mass is much more detrimental to performance than stationary mass. For example, instead of saving 25lbs with that shiny new fiberglass hood, save 25 lbs with a nice set of quality wheels and tires. That same 25 lbs will be multiplied many times over when the wheels begin turning. That is why you sometimes see cars loose wheel horsepower after they install larger diameter brakes, it's all about weight and its position. Also why they make aluminum driveshafts and light rods and pistons. The rotating mass concept is well used in the engine world but not so much on the rest of the car. To answer the engine question I would say if maximum performance in all respects was your goal, then: 1. Must have forced induction and/or nitrous if applicable. Tha fact that you can make a 3 liter engine act like a 6 liter with one bar, a 9 liter with two bars, and so on and so on, is a no brainer, the power to weight ratio of the engine just went through the roof. You get the smaller physical dimensions of say a 3 liter engine compared to a 7 liter engine, which makes it lighter, and easier to transplant/work on.This also can help create a car with racing performance that still retains street manners. 2. Use a V or flat engine configuration. The V engine configuration is about as compact as you're gonna get, and not only is it short, but it is really low, which keeps the weight towards the ground, which is where you want it. Also, try and use aliminum egine components whenever posible. 3. Engine position. Engine positioning is also very important, you could have the lightest engine ever made but if it was mounted on the roof the car would probly have pretty mad body lean. As stated earlier you want the engine far back, towards the center of the car, and low, as close to the ground that is practical. With an engine more towards the center of the car the front to rear weight bias gets closer to 50/50 (to a certain extent) which is ideal for handling. This also adds weight to the rear tires which helps straight line performance. Jason has shown us the potential of the VG30, his engine has an extreme power to weight ratio. Thats why I'm using the VG in my hot rod project instead of the generic small block chevy, it's light and has huge power potential, just what I was looking for. Plus I just like to be different. I'm finally done now, hope I didn't waste too much of your time.

Thanks for the compliments guys. It took alot of work from me and my dad to get to that point. The car was running in the 12.90's in the racing shots. Sadly the engine had some problems, we have a newly rebuilt 357 on the stand and a custom ground solid cam from Bullit Racing, I can't wait to see what it'll do now. I have a feeling parts are gonna start breaking though. The song is from a buddy of mine, here's his site http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=53342394 he's also in a pretty good metal band, here's the band site http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=11915804

Hey guys, just thought I'd share this little video I made. It's not Z related (69 Camaro), but it's got plenty of good racing shots. Check it out, tell me what you think. http://videos.streetfire.net/video/05016791-3e29-4741-8687-98560007fa7f.htm

That is wrong in so many ways, image matters way too much to some people. I paid $600 for my 69 Camaro open 12 bolt, then I had to buy all the guts to make it posi. So if you're just trying to impress someone I guess you can say $100+ for a few ounces of aluminum and a tin cover is worth it. I can't wait to see what they come up with next. PATHETIC!!!

Good call going with the one-peice, they're far superior to the old cork/rubber style. I was also wondering if they are reusable. I disasembled an engine that I had used one in and it looked good, never tried to use it again though.

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=108065&highlight=alf

How heavy is that stuff?

If you really want inexpensive you could be bold and go the roller route. Check out this thread, pretty impressive. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=107977&highlight=roller+paint+job

This is probably my favorite band, good music and a little different. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJk1InofM3k&mode=related&search=

Can anyone ID this turbo? It says H2 on the tag, inlet and exhaust size is 4". It's off an L10 Cummins deisel from a Ford 10 wheeler. I was thinking it may be an hy/hx35 but this engine is way bigger than the dodge pickup deisels, I'm pretty sure its 11 liters. Sorry for the lack of good photos, any help would be appreciated.

Ohh boy...that wasn't even funny, more like just plain sad. He needs to go back to sixth grade grammer. Liars are the worst, especially the ones that talk about the things they own when they don't. What a loser.

I have a couple stories, here's the first. It's a cool August night in South Jersey, the summer of 04 before my senior year of highschool, late. My friends told me about a buddy they knew from the local votech school that had a fox body mustang with a 351 that wanted to race me, so I said sure I'll race. I had my 69 Camaro with the basic mods, 355, mucie M20, 3.08 open rear with tiny 215 no namer tires, headers, holley, comp cam, I had it in the low 14's. Fifteen minutes later we're driving out to the country to meet this guy. At this time I was only 17 and I had just recently gotten my car on the road, so I didn't know much. We finally get there and I check out his car. Talk about intimidating, about a 93'ish mustang convertable, full cage and slicks, sounded mean. After a breif talk we head out to a nice straight road not too far away, dropped off my passengers, then headed down to the starting line with my buddy who was going to flag us. We both do descent burnouts, I did a pretty big one trying to heat up my skinney tire with my open rear. We line up and I hear the mustang guy talking to my buddy he said "are you sure that car only goes 14's?". I laughed. Before I knew it I had the needle at about 2,500 rpm's and my buddie's hands were dropping. My car stalls and I can see a fire under the hood through the rear of my cowl, so I jump out and put it out with a rag, it was just the carb. So the mustang comes back and we line up again. Needle is at 2,500 r's, hands drop, I pop the clutch as fast as I can and spin one tire for about 100 ft while peddaling the gas, the mustang gets 2 cars on me from the start. I slam second and leave another ten feet of rubber on the pavement. I'm catching him fast, tach hits 6,000 rpm's and I mash the competition plus shifter hard into 3rd, another chirp from my one tire and the mustang was growing quick. I thought to myself, "I'm gonna beat him!" ,but it was too late, we had run out of road and I lost by half a car. It was a fair race though and I had fun. I've been wanting to race this guy ever since, now I have a 12 bolt posi with 3.73's and the car is in the 12's, who knows if that will ever happen again. Second story: It's my first semester of college in Kansas, fall 05, I might have been there a month. By now I had my 85 300ZX with a 305 chevy and a saginaw three speed stick, open R200. The 305 was a stock, half worn out, late eighties truck engine with a holley 600 vacuum secondary 4 barrel, and points ignition, the car ran descent. One night I got talking to this kid I had met one day while I was working on my car in the parking lot, the subject came to racing and his buddies jeep with a 302. He suggested we race, I agreed. I had to write a speech for my Rhetoric class for the next day, so after that, about 11pm, I went over, knocked on his door and said I was ready to go. Me and my roommate and about four cars full of people head out to one of the many straight barren roads in kansas. We talked breifly about the race and how they would start it, headlights, then we drove down to the start. My opponents vehicle was a 41 Willy's Jeep pickup with a basic 302 and five speed, this thing was really nice, just redone. We each do a small burnout and line up next to the starting telephone pole. I rev my engine to an unknown, but steady rpm, no tach, and wait for the headlights to flash. The first flash is sent, then the second, and finally the third and I dump the clutch violently and burry the gas pedal into the carpet. The truck immidiately takes about a 1.5 car lead. Thoughts of total and udder disapointment rush through my mind, "All the work I did to this car and this is what happens?". But it's not over untill its over. I hit second hard but cautiously, the shifter had a habbit of hanging up, a small chirp came from the rear and the car squated hard. I was catching him like he was standing still and a huge smile came to my face. Just as we got wheel to wheel I grabbed the third and final gear, I was gone! I was giggling like a school girl as I watched the Jeep's headlights shrink in my rearview. As I blasted by the spectators I could see the astonished look on their faces. My $1,200 pile of free parts which included: the car, engine, and tranny, just blew away a $20,000 truck. I was so happy I forgot to pick up my roommate. My car was the talk of the school the next week, most people hated it, I couldn't have been more proud

This sounds similar to a problem I had with my v8 z31. My 307 would die at about 3,500-4,000 and not go any higher. Here's a thread that might give you some ideas. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=110637 good luck

haha i love it

Hey everyone. I thought you might like to see my new project. It's a 36 Ford PU truck cab that I found in the woods, a homebuilt frame, Pathfinder rear axle, and a VG30 and five speed from my 85 300ZX. It's a work in progress and I have only been going at it for about two months. Give it a look, and tell me what you think. Thanks and have a good one. [/url] Here's the cab how me and my dad found it. It's actually in an old farm dump. Notice the decaying tree that fell on the roof many many years ago. Here it is a few months later after we freed it from the clutches of the vines, it fell apart in the process. Sadly I didn't take any pictures of the massive path we had to chop with macheties just to get it out. This is me after I chopped the heck out of the body, needless to say I was quite happy how it turned out. Total rivet count surpasses 250, and it's not totally finished. Here it is laid out to get an idea of what it might look like. Notice the pathfinder rear. My dad's 67 Camaro drag car hogs the background. This is a nice shot of the body construction. Notice my 1/12 scale model laying on the floor, near the body, and the frame chalked out on the floor. Calculator and note-pad was in hand for quick conversions. 5 speed in the background. Here's the almost completed frame. VG30 set in the rails to check the fitment, it looks interesting. Body is resting in the background. That's it so far. I'll keep you posted on the progress.