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ZROSSA

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Posts posted by ZROSSA

  1. Howdy all.

     

    I have decided to have a go at painting the z myself. I just wont be able to pay someone else for quite some time and have made good progress on the body work of late so the time draws near. I have a good compresser and gun. I dont have breathing eqiupment oter than the mask I use for orchard spraying. Renting a booth wont work for me. Way to far into town.

     

    Anyway... After talking to a paint guy or two it would seem that lacquer paint will be the way to go. Lots of very thin coats and heaps of clear over the top. Does anyone here have any better ideas concidering the limitations? Can you add hardners to lacquer paint to get some of the better anti chipping that the newer paints offer. Any suggestions on what products to use. The car has aprears to have had a couple of paints already but its not worth it to me to bring it all the way back to the metal. I will try to sand back the second coat but it doesnt seem to be in bad condition. Just the wrong colour.

     

    Thanks for the help.

     

    Douglas

  2. Jens, Where have you been? Working on the toys I hope.

     

    Anyway, I was alway thought that ladder bars were a drag only mod. They look like they would never let one wheel to work in bumb without binding. That would make for a very poor/dangerous handeling car on the road. You can get leaf springs that will work with 4 links and such. The factory rally escorts had these as the rules wouldnt let them use coils in some classes. Another option (metioned in Tune to win by Carol Smith) is to weld a sleve that makes the front of the leaf spring solid so that all of the springing is done from the part of the spring behind the axel. You could then just add upperlinks and you would have a poor mans 4 link.

     

    Douglas

  3. I dont think that a compairison of two different cranks in the same engine is really fair. To take advantage of the 377 combo you would want a different head set up to take advantage of the widder bore. Then a different cam.....the list goes on. There was/is a rather large convo going on about hp vs torque at the moment, you should have a read. Now if you dont have any load on these engines the 377 might rev faster, but once you have a load the situation changes. The engine with the most torque under the power curve THAT YOU DRIVE IN is always going to be the fastest.

     

    Douglas

  4. You have to have a grinder! With a couple of diferent attachment you can do a lot with one. I have a wire brush. grinding and cut wheels and a sanding pad on mine. I have done all the fab work on my race car and the metal replacement on the z with this, a drill and a mig. One thing i really would like is a sheet metal bender. If you find a small one at a good price it would be very usefull.

     

    Douglas

  5. Howdy Russ,

     

    Weight and apearence. It kind of depends on what you want to do with the car as well. I have a 2 + 2. I would have bought a 2 seater but they go for a bit of $$ around here. 2+2's are much cheeper. For me it will work. I have 2 small children and now I can take them for a ride as well. If the european cars came from the same place as the ones we got down under the weight penalty is not that much. They are around 1175 kg. Much lighter then the U.S. ones. Make sure you get a good price on it. They should be much cheeper then the 2 seater. Check really well for rust. I mean really well. I put mine over a pit and went over it with a magnet. It passed. Got it home and have spent the last year removing half the roof and most of the tailgate area and replacing it. Dont know what the hell the magnet ws sticking to. Must be atracted to rust as well! It was close to gopng to the tip but the chev conversion was already done and aproved buy the M.O.T. which is getting harder and harder to do. Even in the middle of the pacific ocean the gov. is frowning on modified cars these days.

     

    Good luck

     

    Douglas

  6. Do a bit a a search on jap domestic maximas ( sometimes called Ceferio).

    Some of them were v6 turbo from the factory albeit in 2 lt form. They are pretty cheep here so i would guess you could pick the bits you would need cheeper then if you tryed to get them of a zx or individually.

     

    Douglas

  7. You were planning a big block were you not? I havent really done much research into the larger chevy so am going to stick with the few things I do know. Firstly I think you could reach your hp targets with 3 inch duals. I had a look at the trans am road racing exhuasts recently. These cars are putting out around 700 hp. They must run through dual 3 inch, or a sigle 4 or 5 inch. A formula 1 car has around 850hp and they look as though they run through 2.5 - 3 inch pipes. I think when people suggest really large pipes they are talking about situations where the pipes are open. If you have a proper x or y pipe it might scavenge a little better so you wont need as large a pipe. I get the feeling from what i have read, that with the fireing order of the 90 degree crank, a v8 kind of needs a larger collecter becuase of the exhust pulse not being evenly spaced. You then have to have a larger pipe to match. I think that if you run 180 degree headers you can also use a smaller pipe becuase the pulses are properly spaced. Another option is the 3.5 inch into a x pipe and the 3 inch out. It looks like that past the trans is were you really run into space problems.

    I know you have spent a lot of time studying camshafts of late but exhuast is going to need some research as well. Most likely you will need to do complete custom headers to really take advantage of the rest of the engine.

     

    Anyway, Let me know what size engine you are running and i will look some stuff up in a few books i have here gathering dust.

     

    Couple of interesting places to look:

     

    Burns stainless

     

    Headers by ed

     

    Sghenfeld headers

     

    Dr gas

     

    Sorry you will have to do a search, Compter will dump this if I link them.

     

    Cheers

     

    Douglas

  8. Got a sbc but it runs a single 3.5 inch pipe. It was done by the prevoius owner and doesnt fit at all well. I would say that you are going to be really lacking space. Do you really need all that pipe? I realise that you are planing some big mods but twin 3.5s will suport a hugh amount of Hp.

     

    Douglas

  9. I was watching the local sunday afternoon motorsports program yesterday. They has highlights of a 6 hour endurance race that was run a few months ago. Second on the grid was a v8z(350 chevy), first was a skyline gtr. Behind was a bit of everything from gt3 porches to toyota corollas. After the start the gtr took the lead with the z following. The only place the gtr had it on the z was out of the hairpin. The z would make it up down the back straight so they were pretty much neck and neck untill the z killed its trans. Both these cars left the porche cup cars for dead. I was pretty impressed. Any Idea how your Z would run against a porche cup car John.

     

    Cheers

     

    Douglas

  10. Scott,

     

    Have you had a look at the diffusser's on the vipers and corvettes that run at lemans?

    I havent looked myself but i will try to find out some info tonight (lunch time now).

    I like the idea of the full lenght belly pan. You may as well start at your air dam and vent the under hood heat through the vents in the hood kind of like Terry O's.

    One thing to keep in mind is that race cars run really stiff springs and have bugger all suspension movement. One of the main reasons is to keep that belly pan area as flat to the ground as possable. You dont want under any situation for the front of the pan to be higher than the rear. Do you think you can prevent this from happening on your car? If not the whole thing is in vain. Dont forget about exhuast heat as well.

     

    I will let you know if i find anything.

     

    Cheers

     

    Douglas

  11. Cutting it down and retreading it works but then the shifter is lower and might not be as easy to reach. You could also make a spacer that goes between the shifter and the trans. You will then need to extend the bottom part of the shifter by the same amount as the spacer. This should make a big difference and keep the top of the shifter close to the factory position.

     

    Douglas

  12. I read in a mag recently, not sure which one, about the new mercedes/mcclaren super car. Gordon Murry said he like thought the ideal balance for a front engine rear drive was around 48/52 front to rear. I might be out buy a percentage point but it was only a very slight rear bias. The panos race cars had more weight to the rear if i remember correctlly. Are you basing your decisions on the panos figures Bob?

     

    Douglas

  13. Allready working on one. Its not as straight forward as I first thought. It will require new indicator lights and i still havent finalized the grill shape. The aston still grill doesnt really work with the design restrictions I placed on myself. I didnt want the new nose to extend further than the original bumper due to ground clearence issues. The new nose must also be a improvment in the aero dept. as well. I will try to get some pics as i would love some feed back but the digital camera is dead. I will try to scan some pics. Might be a while untill I get to it though. Acually I just checked the camera. Film almost done so mabye get some up buy the w/end. I will have to e-mail them to some one though. Dont now how to post them here.

     

    Cheers

     

    Douglas

     

    P.s. Have a think about what kind of grill will work. lets call the aston shape a fat lipped hat. ferrari, flat top with smile like bottom, Jag oval, New zed and skylines rectangular or maby something like this ____/ or the upside down version of that.

  14. I put in a 3 inch resonater on my wifes turbo legacy. It was the difference between her complaining and then not. It wont be as noticeable on a n/a set up but its will stop the resonating for a start. Any way you can get a muffler in there?

     

    Douglas

  15. From everything I have read, being less then 7 degrees shouldnt be a problem. The difficulty will be how and where do you attach it at its forward point. Do you have a stock fuel tank? This looks like it will get in the way. I wonder if you could use a inverted gurney flap on the end of the diffuser to lower the low presure area to pull away some of the fumes. Time to get out the wool tufts and do some testing.

     

    Cheers

     

    Douglas

  16. Merge collecters are way expensive. Cheepest I have seen is around $600 usd for a pair for a v8. That pipe ,regardless of were it exits, still from what I can see has a sharp 45 degree bend in it.

     

    Douglas

  17. Very nice work. Got a couple of questions;

     

    Did you make the merge collecters? If so how did you decide on the size and taper?

     

    Why do you not have a mandrel bend after the collecter? Thats got to hurt the gas flow.

     

    Cheers

     

    Douglas

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