ZROSSA

I have been through this a couple of times myself. The most consitstant answer was that the early isolater will lower a late model car 3/4 of and inch. Motor sport auto has a kit that will replace the late ones with early ones and give you haevy duty bushings as well. Could be worth looking into. Douglas

If you get stuck on the rb30 block let me know and I will call a few of the local yards for you. They should be pretty cheep. Shiping wont be though. Douglas

Thanks guys, That should get the rear at the level I want it. Now i just need to find some 240 ones. Not many around this part of the world. Douglas

Cyrus, I read somewhere ages ago that if you have your intercooler tubing larger on the exit then you wil get less of a pressure drop due to the intercooler. Maybe this is why toyota has a larger throttle body. Douglas

Howdy all, Can any one out there help me with the thickness of the strut isolaters from diferent year s30's. I want to drop the rear of my 77 2+2 about a inch. If i drop in some front isolaters from a 240 will that do the trick? I know they are shoter but I just dont know buy how much. A actual measurement would be good for comparison. My Z has been pulled apart and put together so many times that i dont really know what year the parts are from. Cheers Douglas

If you really want to figure out how to match revs dont use the clutch at all. I had a old corolla at college that had a crappy master cylinder that i couldnt afford to get fixed for about 6 months. You had to start the engine in 1st gear and change without the clutch up and down the gears. Never had a problem since. I still do it sometimes just to stop bordom in traffic Douglas

Guys, do any of you know what the thickness of the rear strut isolaters is. My car is a 260z 2+2 thats been imported from Japan so i dont know of i have early or late isolaters. The ones i have are almost 2 inchs thick. If the early ones are 3/4 inch shorter that will put the rear ride height just where i want it. Cheers Douglas

I have just come back from a trip state side. One of my cousins in Florida has a brand new factoty five cobra that was put togeter for him. Runs a 351w with 420 hp at the crank. Fastest thing I have ever been in and the engine wasnt run in so we didnt take it past 4500 rpm. Really impressive. I dont like the chassis much however. You would think that after making replicas for so many years that some one would come up with a proper space frame for the things. That would probably fix most of the handeling problems and make it lighter. Douglas

In some cases its easier to sell the car and buy the car you want. On this side of the world the tt's are not much more expensive. Only $1000 - $2000 more. Thats NZ dollars as well. These things are cheep here now. I have seen good tt's for $6000. Very tempting. Douglas

This is the same engine they use in the 4.0 lt jag right? Anyway, I have just come back from San diego visiting family and they have a brand new t-bird. Had to have a look and a drive. The engine is bigger then the sbc in my z and really fills up the engine bay in the t-bird. I really was disapointed with it, the car must weigh a lot. Didnt feel much faster then the suv i had rented. Douglas

260det, I have been making a buck for the fron and rear. The front works a bit like a g-nose but loks a lot better IMHO. Its a nose cone basiclly, you dont run a bumper any more and hopeflly it will improve the aero aspect a bit. The rear is really just a bumper replace ment. It has a small venturi like a ss c/dore which might improve flow under the car but i doubt buy much. I will try to send you some photos later today. BTW, where do you get your supercsr info. I can never find much usfull info on them on the net. Douglas

Having some molds made at the moment. I had some photos in my personel photo file but I havent figured out how to add them in the new format. I will give it another go. I was going to try to bring an example of new front and rear over with me in a couple of weeks but every one is stuffing me about so it doesnt look like i will be able to. Topless Z was looking at doing a run of them states side. Douglas Just tryed to put the photos in. No luck, they must be to large or something. I dont know. Computers are a pain in the arse! I am going to have some better ones soon any way, when i do i will e-mail them to topless Z!

Another thing to remember is that there is a lot of side loading on the shock absorber on the mac strut. This will give you friction and more heat in the strut. The double wishbones treat the shock independently and you dont have those problems. There still are a lot of good race cars with struts though. Ask any Porsche guy. Another example is the aussie v8 touring cars, the falcons used wishbones, the c/dore's struts (until last year). The c/dore's still won the championship heaps more than the falcons. Go figure? Douglas

I kind of lnow where you are coming from Scottie. I Always have to be playing with something. Twice now I have built cars for the road that end up being weekend only check for police first canyon carvers that eventually become undrivable on the road. I am trying not to do that with the 260z but you never know. There should be some interesting engines around soon if you are still into large displacement v6's. Nissan's 4.0 truck engine, Misubishi and isuzu 3.5 v6 gms new 3.8 quad cam about to be released. I bet these engines with a gn style turbo wold be a lot of fun and mabye a new engineering road to go down. Probably cost a lot more than the gn however. Keep us up to date! Cheers Douglas

Jared, I will have a go at putting them back up tonight. There hasnt been any progress on the molds . The guy promised me he would get started this week end. I will make a few calls tonight and see if I can speed him up a bit. Douglas

Grant, Go here http://www.zparts.com/showcase/sleekz/szconcepts/2_2project/2_2intro.html and print out a copy of the 2+2 two there. Then just draw what you like. You will see that different window treatment can make a big difference. Douglas

We were talking about this a couple of weeks ago. I think that the reason the 2+2 looks funny is that the roof line gets thicker in profile as you go towards the rear. The hockey stick angle at the hatch doesnt help either. I really believe that covering the rear widow will make this worse. Try mocking up some card board and painting it a similar color to your car and see what you think. I am going to try some paint tricks on mine to make the windows look larger. It worked nicely on some drawings I did. Douglas

Aux, Have you got a part # ? Are they actually a bolt in item for the Z? Douglas

John, I had a 79zx 2+2. Ran 225/50/15's on 7 inch rims on the front and 245/50/15's on 7.5 inch rims on the back. The car was lowered about a inch all round and I never had any problems with rubbing. If I were to do it again I would keep the size the same front and rear or run some sort of balance bar to better tune the brakes for the difference in traction front to rear. You need to remember that the more you change something from stock the more tuneing you will need to do to make it work. I think that the zx could be a bit twitchy if you mess with the ride height difference between the front and rear to much. If you could get a 235/50/15 on all four corners thats what i would go for. Douglas

Sorry mate, Beat you to the baby seats in the back thing. I have a 77 2+2 v8 z. Its in the final stages of body work right now. I have thought a lot about the rear shape of the 2+2 and of why it looks funny. I dont think that the window shape is the problem. It more a case of the metel above the window getting thicker as you move backward. This make the car look visually heavy in the rear. My car had a lot of rust above the hatch so I altered the roof line at the corners so the transition from roof to hatch is smoother and more like the coupe. I have also removed the drip rails. I think it looks much better. I have toyed with the idea of blacking out all the chrome around the windows and even using the same paint above the windows a little to make the roof look like its part of the window and will visually narrow the thickness of the roof at the rear. The other thing I have done is make a new rear spoiler that hangs of the back a bit more then most. This lenghthens thecar and makes the roof blend in a bit more. There are some old photo in my personal album. Cheers Douglas

Went fot a ride in one the other day. It scoots. The engine is the the latest version of the old Aussie straight six. They have been making it since the sixties at least. I think its actually based on a US design. Ford made a 250 ci straight six didnt they? It doesnt rev high but has a ton of grunt. I think it lighter that a v8 as well. Not shure about that though. The motoring writers always seem to prefer the handeling of the six to the v8 falcon. Douglas

Good news on the roof Jared. I will give the fiberglass guys doing the molds a call this afternoon. Progress has been slow so far but works for me as I dont really want to pay for it this month. Douglas

Thanks again, Very interesting, So buy the "sounds" of things instead if spliting the pulse in to 16 you are actually combining them in the secound set of x-pipes. Do you think a x- pipe into a y-pipe would get similar results? I am only looking for around 400 hp at the fly wheel so it think twin 3 incher is a bit much. I notice you say its not perfect, What would you do different next time? I find the whole concept of your exhuast very interesting, never come across it before and i have talked and searched a hell of a lot. Cheers Douglas

Thanks for the reply Grumpy, I am still trying to get my head around the concept of the dual x-pipes. Does the first set create the vacum at the collecter then the second set work as a noise reducer? I was thinking that in 2 revolutions of the motor you would get 4 exhuast pulses at each collecter, The first x-pipe would even this out so you would almost get 8 smaller pulses in each pipe but spaced equally apart. Then you hit the next x-pipe and you could get 16 smaller pulses out of each pipe, this could posably make the exhuast sound a lot smother and posably quieter. Am I on the right track? Does your Vette sound like a v8 or a little more european? Cheers Douglas

Rodger, Have you changed the locating points where the trailing arm meets the chassis? 3.5 inchs is a big drop for a semi trailing arm. I think you will need to get it set up do that you have very little camber at that ride height and then make it stiff so the camber curve cant change around. I saw a photo of a racing 510 that had the inner rear link made adjustable for up and down movement. May have been in "how to hot rod your datsun". I though about how to acheive the same adjustability youing rose joints for my race car but never came up with anything strong enough. I was trying to put a independant rear in my old corolla race car. I had a early 80's rear end out of a supra but in the end it was much easier and lighter to use a beam axel. I am not sugessting you do that. Your damper double or triple adjustable? Douglas