ZROSSA

Guys, This is not a small car. Its bigger then a 5 seriers BMW, almost the same size as a 7 series. Its been so long since I have been in the states that I cant really compare it with domestic product, But I dont think it would be far of the size of a caprice or similar. Douglas

Darius, I dont know what gear ratio you have in the diff but it would seem that most of our cars are pretty undergeared for "normal driving". First gear is almost redundant on my set up (sbc 5 speed supra 3.56 rear) so if I change my rims I will look for something that would make it better (taller tyre). The taller tires can also visual lower the car with out auctually lowering them. They fill the wheel well better and you can still keep a bit of ground clearence. So thats my common sence answer. The emotive one is, Go as wide as possible. Douglas

I ran the l20et turbo set up on a 280zx I had about 10 years ago. A real cheap and nasty conversion. It wasnt hard to do. A bit of making up new air inlet pipes, exhuast and mucking around with the fuel pressure regulator. I never had it runing great but it was a different beast to the standard l28. The turbo spooled very fast but ran out of puff quite early so it kind of had the driving characteristics of a good turbo d. truck. I never ran more then standard bost and had the stock compression ratio. I dont know how long it would have lasted. The car was totaled a few months later. Its good to see so many Kiwi's piping up. Mabye when we get some of our projects going we should meet up? Cheers Douglas

Wicked, The z32 with a poked engine is worth nothing here, and I love the shape. I wonder how i can slip this one past the family? Any one know the weight difference between the v6 and sbc? Douglas

I am sure the ford can be made to produce that power. Any engine designed in the last 30 years should be able to make 100 hp per lt if supercharged. It would pay to search around the ford forum and see what has been said in the past. The nine inch is one of the strongest rear ends out there, but you would have to rebuild the whole rear end of the car to get it in and you lose the independent rear. Its hard to make sugestions without really knowing the end use of the car. What you have suggeted sounds like a good menu for a drag car. Is this what you are after? Douglas

TBS, Are the bore centers the same on the rb's as the L's? The other thing I would like to know is the difference between te rb series heads. rb20, 25, 26. Is the basic head the same casting? I wouldnt be surprised if it was and that they just played around with valve sizes and variable valve timing. Douglas

For some reason I fell I need to defend this poor litle example of GM badge engineering. You all know this is bases on the Holden Manaro (sp?) from aussie. The Manaro is based on the Commadore. This has been the best selling aussie car for years. As with most best selling cars its pretty bland at the best of times but still better then the compitition. Have a look at your own best sellers. Honda accord, Toyata camry. Wouldnt catch me dead in those. Now the manaro is not a bad set of wheels. It corners well and has a ls1 in it. I think its about the same weight as a firebird/camaro twins so its a bit of fun to drive. Gm has done a face lift on the commadore which hasnt made it to the manoro yet which updates the styling a bit. Its unfortunate that GM decided to market the as the GTO in the states. It will never really fit that market, but it was cheep to do. They only replaced the badges and the front grill, Oh , and probably put crappy spring and dampers in it as well, so it probabbly wont go around corners, Just like the original one. Mabye its closer to the original then you think. Cheers Douglas

Glad I could help. Anything can be done if your pockets are deep enough. There are lots of ways around the chassis issues as well. You dont have to build great big tube frames. Try to do some research on some of the older race cars like the early lotus' (6 - 28 i think) and other cars from that era. They all run space frame chassis with a metel skin as a structural member. You could kind of reverse enginer this in to the z chassis using the original chassis as the structural skin. Its said that the z is week behind the firewall and behind the seats so it wants to bend like a banana. So you want bracing that will stop this from happening and to tie in the suspension mounts to it. I am thinking about using the trans tunnel to stop the flexing. I will make a mini space fram that attaches to the firewall, trans tunnel, diff mounts, and the top of the rear struts. It will also need to go through the fire wall and pick up the front struts. This is called a backbone chassis. We talked about it in previous posts so you might want to do a search. This type of structural inprovement will not help you if you crash but its bloody light. You could add to it by running more tube along the sills and then bringing it up to join the strut tops in front of and behind the doors. You can make this even stronger buy riviting ali. pannels to the space frame so you really end up with a double skin. This is not the way to the strongest z in the world but it will solve the problems and be easy to make. ( i hate making roll cages) Its could also be almost invisable. A bit of carfull carpeting and not many would tell the difference. Thats the bit I like. A roll cage is a bit of a give away. Cheers Douglas

tt350, This project sound like it could be a lot of fun, or a nightmare. You should try to find Rod millan. He is in cal. might not be close but i am sure it would be a worth will trip. He is the man who made the pikes peak celica's and trucks. His brother, Steve raced 300zx's with imsa gtp engines in them. If i were in your boat the first thing i would do is find a trans set up that will work with the power you want. If you are going to want to do 4 wheel drive now is the time to plan for it. If you dont then when the time comes you will have to re build the whole front end of your car. The problem with most of the 4 x 4 set ups is that they put the engine forward and high. You dont want this. You need the front diff and drive shafts to be in front of the engine, not under it. The only cars i can think of that had this set up are the for escort cosworth (europe only, hughly expensive trans set up) Millans pikes peak car/truck, and a couple of the old style DTM cars. The Opel calabra come to mind. This had a interesting set up where the centre diff was behind the engine and it ran two drive shafts forward on the side of the engine block. One for each wheel. I was reading a car mag about a 4 x 4 holden thats coming out this year. It is said that it is using a set up that was designed for a new caddy model ( yet to be released) that sounds like the calibra set up. I know its designed for the LS1 to bolt up to it . It might pay to wait 4-6 months and find out whats what. Even if have to buy a whole brand new car its cheeper than the race units. Anyway, Have a look around at different 4 x 4 set ups. There is a lot to learn. Cheers Douglas

That rear end is a lot wider then the z's. Its also based on a semi trailing arm like the 280zx's. This one now has a extra link which is said to make a world of difference. Its still not the best as far as geometry changes go. Cheers Douglas

Looks like I will have to go to the shed and pull out my Vizard books. I dont really remember that part with any great detail. Cheers Douglas

Mike, I always seem to get a little confused on where the collecter finishs and the exhuast pipe starts. I always thought the collecter finished where the piped stoped diverging. It would seem that in drag racing circles (open pipes) that the pipe straight pipe after the diverging pipe is called the collecter as well. This obviously would make a difference to where you put your resonater. If your collecter is like a drag racing one with a tuned straight length after it and then goes into the resonater i can see that working. I cant see it working straight of the back of some headers though. Douglas

Dont forget abou the guy who is making the autocross z. Full tube chassis and hand made z style suspention with super long control arms and wicked fabrication. I forgot his name.......I think he posted in the motersports section..........Will search........Have searched, Chap goes buy cmcalstr. Hopefully you can look at these photos from here. http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/cmcalstr/lst?.dir=/EMOD+Z&.src=ph&.order=&.view=t&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/ If not look under the thread Emod z in the motorsports forum. Douglas

You can make the carbs work. There are blowthrough turbo groups on the net that have lots of good info. holley has floats you need of the shelf. There is probably a lot more tuning to get the carbs to work and they will proabably never have the range that injection does but they are a hell of a lot cheeper. The original book "turbochargers" buy Hugh Mcinnis (sp?) has some good info on set up with carbs. Cheers Douglas

I finally found a photo of a Transam car with single exhaust last night. The y pipe looks to be mounted at a distance thats the same distance as the primary pipe length of the header. The muffler is mounted that same distance from the y pipe. These exhausts are huge. They can run a 4.5 or 5 inch single or dual 3.5 inch pipes. I cant emagine that anyone would go to the lenghts that they do to get the exhuast into a single pipe if it wasnt worth some H.P. Douglas

Howdy and welcome, Here is a good place to start, http://www.hybridz.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=20108 This is the only finished z32 I have seen here. It actually looks like a really good fit. The overhead cams make the original engine a tight fit. I would say that (for me anyway) the electrics would be the hard bit. Cheers Douglas

What about the drive train out of one of those GMC syclones. I think that where the v6 has been the v8 can go. Dont trust me on this one... look where I live. Im not shure if you can bolt a tranfer case onto any old transmission otherwise those nascar g/boxes are a good idea. With all that torque you dont need many gears. Douglas

I would actually run a resonator instead off a muffler. Then put the muffler at the back. If you want to do it right then the y-pipe need to be a certain distance fron the collecter and then the resonater needs to be a calculated distance back from that. On a dual system this distance is usually a multiple of the primary exhuast lenght. I dont know how to figure it out with a y- pipe. I read once that to figure out how long you want your collecters do some full throttle runs and then cut the pipe of where it starts to discolour. This is where you need to mount the resonater as well. Once the exhaust hits the resonater it behaves as though its the atmosphere and what you do behind doesnt really matter. If any one out there knows how to propery configure a single pipe system on a v8 i would love to know more. I am going to have to make my own exhuast and figure It may as well be a good as i can get it. I keep hereing that there is a H.P./ torque advantage in the single pipe, but a lot of v8 race cars still run duals with or without a x-over. Why dont you ever see drag cars with single pipes? Cheers Douglas

hmmmmm, Might have to look into that. I have been making a nose cone for my z that will sort of work like the g-nose but IMHO be better and more modern looking. It doesnt over hang as much either, so doest make the car look so nose heavy. If the stock hinges bring the nose down as well as forward I can make it work. I need to take the buck of the car before I look into it though so it will be a while. Douglas

I havent had the pleasure of looking at a g-nose up close but I take it that the original hinges move the hood forward a little when it opened and it would then rub on the nose. Is this correct? Cheers Douglas

Not sure what / inchs is? I have measured it this afternoon. It is 13 inchs from the front of he radiator suport and 4.5 inchs of the ground. The front of my car is lowered but the back isnt so it will come up a little when done. Can someone get back to me so I can compare. Cheers Douglas

Ok, So now we have 4 wheeel drive. You might be able to keep it in a strainght line. So lets have a think about the fastest 4x4's and what kind of gerarboxes they run. You need a transfer case so I think that leaves the t56 on the sideline. The gtr skilines that road raced in group a (r32) made over 700 hp. They needed a race only hollinger gearbox. Some of the pike peak cars have huge hp and 4x4. None of them run standard componets. Unless you start to look at truck componets (propably still not strong enough) you are going to have a fortune tied up in drivtrain parts. I have no doubt the chev can make the power. Nascar can make 800 hp without the blowers on smaller cubes with restrictions, and the factories are putting out turbo cars with over 170 hp per lt as it is now. If you can manage that you will have 1068 hp from your 377. I dont think making the power is going to be the problem. After saying all that, it would be wicked to see a z with that kind of power. We just dont know what kind of resources you have at you disposal to meet this goal. Hell, Your boss could be Rod Millan of similar. Cheers Douglas

HEEEEEELP!

Dont mean to rain on your cake, but........ You will never get the thing to hook up. I bet you would be quicker around the track with 700 n/a hp. The local Tranz am guys here have around 700 hp and can light there 12 inch rear tyres at will. Nightmare in the wet. Good luck! Douglas

Get a early Te 25. No smog. Very light 700 kg....Whats that.....1540lbs. Like a go cart. Put a 200 hp motor in it and it will be like a z with a 320 hp motor. Douglas