patzky1

Me and a few friends moved another's first-gen. bug from his parking space in front of his house to his porch. He was surprised when he got back: "Dude, WTF?" Of course, it was a substantial porch and we had to take the thing apart and reassemble...idle hands? With the easily removable stuff taken off (engine, bonnets, doors, wheels), we five guys could move it up the stairs. Pat

I've got one, pm me. Pat

I saw it last night, too, and thought it was great. You'll notice that South Park is consistently on top of things like that. They do the animaiton with a kickass supercomputer and can really crank out an episode, as opposed to hand-drawn ones taking a few months. Kenny = tomato Newflash: Terry Schiavo has just died Pat

http://jagsthatrun.com/Pages/Datsun_Z_V-8.html http://www.johnscars.com/zcar.htm Just to name a couple... Pat

Maybe try the 2.3L 4 cyl. out of a newer ford ranger? They can get 30-ish in the truck so it may get similar in a Z. It would probably fit, is already set up for rear wheel drive, and will be easy to find a 5 speed for. Pat

Thoughts of rollcages and subframe connecters are dancing through my head now.... seems the only way to make our flexy little cars as tight as their modern counterparts. I have the poly bushings, stiffer springs, and requisite shocks out of the way, but the car is still slightly "wobbly" when I hit a bump during a turn. It IS a whole lot better than it used to be though. Been in a stock 944T one time and WAS impressed by its handling stock. Nice little cars, but too much $$ to justify it whereas you can have a Z that does the same and work on it yourself. Pat

GRRRRRRRRRRRR /Jealous

From a Cali gov't site: "For the same load and engine conditions, diesel engines spew out 100 times more sooty particles than gasoline engines. As a result, diesel engines account for an estimated 26 percent of the total hazardous particulate pollution (PM10) from fuel combustion sources in our air, and 66 percent of the particulate pollution from on-road sources. Diesel engines also produce nearly 20 percent of the total nitrogen oxides (NOx) in outdoor air and 26 percent of the total NOx from on-road sources." - This sounds like California-style diesel bashing. My question is: What percentage of the NOx in outdoor air is from gassers? How about PM5 and PM10? How do these relate when volume of gassers and diesels are factored in? - However, Don't forget... when diesel enines are run at maximum capacity they tend to spew out the black stuff (carbon black soot, oil, unburnt fuel). At the same time, cars' emissions maintain about the same composition (RH and NOx go up a little) with different power settings. Oh, and I thought everybody knew not to trust the mpg statements at the dealer. Averaging multiple sources is the way to go IMHO. Pat

What do you call a blonde with two brain cells? Pregnant. / Going to hell

I have had a similar experience as you and it was due to a low tranny fluid level. However, I don't know too much about the differences in a 4l60E. Sounds obvious, but are you 100% sure you have the right type and amount of transmission fluid in there? The procedure to fill autos includes starting and idling it while periodically moving through the gears (brake on), letting it warm up, and adding fluid until the stick shows full. Don't overfill! It would definetly not move if you just filled it cold and did not do the above procedure, as you add most of the fluid while the car is running. So, let the car idle to its operating temperature on a level surface, check the level, and add as necessary. Hope this helps... Pat

I have an s30 with an sbc and actually had a local welding/machine shop do the fabriction of the mounts with the exception of the transmission crossmember. The guy took one look at the schematic in the JTR manual and said he could not reproduce the bends. So, I bought that from JTR. Other than that I, just made sure they had the "chevy truck" motor mounts and a copy of the pages from the manual to go by. $60 in materials and $107 total including labor, but it is all mild steel and heavy as crap. In retrospect, I would have just bought the JTR aluminum mounts even though it would be more expensive. Pat

Yeah, a 305 is not a great bang-for-the-buck motor unless you are planning on having less than ~ 250 hp in the end (nobody here). I think they pretty much top out at 330 hp and that is with ALL the $$ goodies minus nitrous, turbo, or whatever. My beginning engine, the free 305, was factory rated at 145 hp and it had like 120,000 miles on it so it was actually putting out less I think. I researched what it would cost to make it over 250 hp (rebuild, pistons, cam, heads) and it was just as cheap to just get an already-done 350 good for about 300 from my dad's friend. Overall, I DID like the 305 and it was worth putting it in for starters b/c it was.....free! Pat

I can second that one, SHO-Z. This year I made a trip through 50 miles of blizzard on state highways (non-interstate) and it was harrowing. When there is snow and ice on the ground with a strong crosswind my car tends to weathervane a little bit and can get out of control. The rear end simply kicks out on me. Luckily the whole car still fits into one lane when it's slideways. Just let completely off the gas and it gets right back in line. In fact, there were other cars in the ditch and I was still doing fine. Bad drivers, heh. Really, though, the only other problem is getting going in deep snow and actually stopping quickly in emergency situations. I would surmise that the Z is just as good as any other sub-4,000# rear-wheel drive car with (a little extra) power would be in the snow. Pat

For starters, insurance for me was as cheap as any other car would be since I rode along with my parents' insurance. Sorry if I digress a little here: For me, I got a 77 as my first car. Actually, I drove the parents' Taurus for a coupla months then bought the Z. Got it for $1,300 then cracked the head after three months. The radiator suddenly developed a small leak on a 100 mile trip and even though I checked EVERYTHING before going, it overheated. What really caused the problem was that my temp guage was intermittent and remarkably read a normal operating temperature until it started spitting and sputtering. That was totally my fault, because I should have fixed it as soon as I knew about it. Anywho, that costed me $250 for a 78 parts car for the head and radiator (it was worth it!). Guess what, the head on that one had to be freshened. That costed me another $120 plus gaskets ($40). Then the friggin' idle air control needed to be replaced so I used the one off the parts car. Also eventually did brakes ($55-ish), bearings ($45) and got new tires ($300). So, you can see that it really costed me to not fix the temp. guage right away and on top of that I had to do regular maintenance. Eventually I got tired of the nissan motor and decided to go chevy 350. I got a carb'd 305 paperweight and th350 tranny for free...my grandma wrecked her caprice LOL. These went in JTR style ( did it myself for $500 ) and the car was only a little faster than with the 2.8. Oh, and the th350 tranny's forward clutches eventually went so I rebuilt that myself ($120) in a few days. Now it has a decent 350 motor (yeah!) with MECHANICAL guages and is pretty nice as well as reliable. Since then I have replaced the bushings with urethane ($150-ish) and painted it myself ($125). Add that up and I had put in about $2550, including the cost of the car, and a ton of my personal time during the first three years of ownership. Howver, I think it has been one of the most rewarding and best experiences of my life so far and definitely worth it all. Lesson: Old cars are NOT cheap to maintain, but don't be scared if you can at least do some of the work yourself to maintain it. ALSO, IMHO you should really look into getting a parts car if you don't have a junk yard close by with a few z's. my .02 Pat

I timed the video at 14 seconds for a lap. Definitely got speed up somehow Sweet ride! Wish mine looked as good and sounded as menacing on the throttle roll-ins... Edit: Sorry, my foot is in my mouth. I got 20 seconds for real. So, that woule be 90 for average mph and much more believable. Pat

Women with power tools! http://www.ifilm.com/viralvideo?ifilmid=2509265 Discuss amongst yourselves, I'm getting a little verclempt. Pat

Larry: I am the only registered owner of the software AFAIK. The original owner got XP pro free from his company and did not need his old xp so, basically, I got it. He gave me the CD with all of the auth. codes and it installed fine and is registered. Windows update works, etc. Not sure what you mean. How could my fresh XP install remember the old owner's info? Am I missing something?

Nah, taskbar is not too long and has all the regular stuff running. The computer seems to run as fast as it did with ME (really not that sluggish), but that's a damn weird glitch isn't it? Like I said, I'll put in some form of video card to see if the mysterious "64MB" seen by control panel>system is just the 64MB that the onboard video contains or what. Worth a try anyway. Thanks to all of you for the input. Pat

REALLY don't think it's a virus, though. I have updated Norton that runs once a week, have run SpySweeper, etc. and never had more than a couple viruses pop up, the usual stuff. Also, the computer is not chugging away constantly like it would if it was as you suggest. After restarts it says about the same free memory every time. Pat

Ok this is what I get if I go to programs>accessories>system tools>system information: IT DOES read the total installed ram of 384MB. However, if you go to control panel-system it shows a different value: "AMD Duron, 699 MHZ, 64MB of RAM" i.e. the confusion I have right now! I am under the impression that the two should match. If I hit Crtl-Alt-Del and look at the performance section it says the total memory = 65,076K (65MB), available ~ 12,500K, and cache ~ 16,500K ----------------------------------------------------------------------- OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600 OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation System Name ... System Manufacturer VIA Technologies, Inc. System Model KM400-8235 (new in 2003, supports up to 2gigs ddr) System Type X86-based PC Processor x86 Family 6 Model 3 Stepping 0 AuthenticAMD ~699 Mhz-----(I know, I'm gonna update this soon enough) BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies, LTD 1006, 9/15/2003 SMBIOS Version 2.2 Windows Directory C:WINDOWS System Directory C:WINDOWSsystem32 Boot Device DeviceHarddiskVolume1 Locale United States Hardware Abstraction Layer ... User Name ... Time Zone Central Standard Time Total Physical Memory 384.00 MB Available Physical Memory 4.03 MB Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB Page File Space 151.91 MB Page File D:pagefile.sys -------------------------------------------------------------- So, the system does recognize the ram but is not using it for some reason? I might also add that the computer had no problem recognizing (and using) all of the 384MB when it ran ME. Same setup still as during ME, but with a different HDD. Pat

Ok, so I'm going to get a cheap video card for the AGP slot to see if that helps. I agree with you guys that it will definetly free up some ram, but I still dont' think that is the problem. I really think that XP is somehow only sensing 64 mb of ram total...We'll see, I'll post later what the result is. Oh and thanks for the input, guys! Pat

Mario: Well, actually it Does run with 64 ram, but it runs with a lot of virtual memory, around 110 MB (read: slowly). I'm using it right now as a matter of fact. Drax: I'm using the motherboard's VGA port, with no video card installed in the AGP slot. Shouldn't be a problem, right? I think it is more an OS setting issue. This is what the memory part of "system information" throws out, but I can't see where it says anything about memory: 0xFFFF0000-0xFFFFFFFF System board OK 0x0000-0x9FFFF System board OK 0xFEC00000-0xFEC00FFF System board OK 0xFEE00000-0xFEE00FFF System board OK 0xFFF80000-0xFFFEFFFF System board OK 0xDC000000-0xDDFFFFFF VIA CPU to AGP Controller OK 0xDC000000-0xDDFFFFFF Video Controller (VGA Compatible) OK 0xD8000000-0xDBFFFFFF VIA CPU to AGP Controller OK 0xD8000000-0xDBFFFFFF Video Controller (VGA Compatible) OK 0xD0000000-0xD7FFFFFF VIA CPU to AGP Controller OK 0xDF001000-0xDF0010FF Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller OK 0xDF002000-0xDF0020FF VIA Rhine II Fast Ethernet Adapter OK 0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI bus OK 0xA0000-0xBFFFF VIA CPU to AGP Controller OK 0xA0000-0xBFFFF VgaSave OK 0xC0000-0xDFFFF PCI bus OK 0xC8000-0xCBFFF System board OK 0xF0000-0xF7FFF System board OK 0xF8000-0xFBFFF System board OK 0xFC000-0xFFFFF System board OK 0x100000-0xBFEFFFF System board OK 0xBFF0000-0xBFFFFFF System board OK 0xC000000-0xFEBFFFFF PCI bus OK Pat

Hey all, I figured this was a good as forum as any to ask a computer question since many of you here are more savvy than I. My computer stats: Socket-A Amd Duron, 700 MHz ASUS A7V8X-MX (333/266/200 MHz FSB) a 256MB DDR 266 and a 128MB DDR 266 for RAM XP SP2 (Dell edition from a friend) Ok, so the BIOS recognizes all of the ram, 384MB, at POST. However, when the system gets all booted up and I go to check the system properties it says only 64 MB of RAM!! This does not seem to be a simple setting problem because whether I only put in one of the RAM sticks or both it will always only say 64 MB. How do I fix this? Is there some setting I can change or what? This is teh suck. If it helps, when the computer used to run Millenium Edition it recognized all of the RAM, but thats apples to oranges since its now XP. By the way, XP does not run well on 64 MB of RAM... Any help MUCH appreciated! Pat

Yep, have to chime in here.... It's sad that my GF's Mercury Mystique could probably handle as well and is definitely more stable than my 280. It really just glides over the bumps as compared to my Z. Thing is, I think it has similar spring rates and tires, but the suspension and structural rigity shine through because of its newness. It's also about 5 times quiter on the hwy. Oh yeah, and the kicker? It weighs only a little more (300 pounds) and is a friggin' 4 door. However, in the power and acceleration category I rule it but that's really my only plus Well, that and the looks Just tells me that I need to a) reinforce like crazy (subframe connectors, thicker frame rails, rollcage?) and make sure I finish the suspension goodies like planned. So far I have only overhauled the entire front end. And damn, Bastaad, you have a lot of posts! Pat

Such a tease to post pictures like those and say that she does not want to mess around! On a side note, I'm close enough to Chicago to bid... but nah, the g/f would KILL me. Pat