ZROSSA

I have always been told that round tubing is stonger than square for the same weight. I really like the idea about tieing in the compresion struts. This looks like a week area on the early z. I think if i were doing it, I might yet, i would wld to the crossmember and make "ears" that the strut could bolt through that then was atached with aditional bolts at all four corners.

Dont forgetthat is you are going to have port mis-allignment then the exhuast needs to larger then the port. Douglas

Roll cages, man have i put a lot of thought into those over the years. there are a couple things to remember that i dont think have been mentioned yet. No mater what the application try to tie the front and rear suspension with the cage. Triangulate (?) it as much as you can and never put a load into the middle of a bar. On my old corolla race car the cage is almost a space frame it could run without the shell at all and picks up every suspension mount and strut tops. It is also attached to the body buy tabs to try to get as much stiffness as possable. Then you could always seam weld the car. Lots of fun. The local z race cars Tie in the cage to the strut tops then add another bar from the bottom of the main hoop back up to the strut top. Welded into this is a bar which goes between the two rear strut tops. this then gets a diagonal bar back to the main hoop. You could do this from the other side to form a x. Look at some current Aussie super touring cars or the old british touring cars for ideas. They have awsume cages that tie into the shell as the rules are a bit different then in the states. You guys just buy a spec space frame and slap any old body one it. Both work fine but the poms cages better fit our applications.

Lone, Cosworth was based one the pinto block and comes in many different spec with diferrent turbos. Zetec has different block and emission style heads, smaller valves that are placed further towards the side of the combustion chamber. Good for the world, bad for power. The cosworth is lots heavyer as well but much easyer to get big hp from.

Everybody thinks differently. If I were going to 4 cylinder power I would use a nissan fj20 turbo engine. You could find these at a local jap importer. Its a very strong engine. Nissan were going to use it as a base for a turbo f1 engine but pulled the plug at the 11th hour. They rallyed it in 2.4 lt n/a form and it put out over 260 fwhp with a solid tourque curve. It puts out around 205 fwhp in turbo form from the factory. In aussie and New Zealand they are using standard internals and puting out 450 to 500 hp in speedway form and puting shame to a lot of v8 guys. It should be pretty easy to put in a z. People a putting them into 1600's (510's) al over the place. The fastest 4 cylinder drag cars in aussie ran fj20's. They are cheep two $800 buck N.Z. roughly $350 usd. Weight would be back toward the rear as well.

I bought a thing called a donut when we put 3 inch one my wifes legacy gt turbo. you just cut out bits of "Pie" for the amount of bend you want and join the rest with straight pipe. It is a litle more work but has similar flow to a mandrel system and picked up about 40 hp on the legacy. I would use the donuts again. We only use one on the subaru.

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out for some opel lights. I forgot abput them. Douglas

Does anyone know what car the tail lights on the gto kit cars come from? I have bought a 260 that the previous owner has filled in the back light panel and i thought these might look a little better than stock. Cheers Douglas

An opertunity has come up. I am going to look at a 260z 2+2 with a 350 chev in it. This has worked suspension a supra steel case 5 speed and a 300zx diff with a 3.5 ratio. It needs a paint so its not to expensive. The question is, how much more do the +2's weigh than the 2 seaters and are there any special places to look for rust or body stress do to the chev. this sounds like a fun car and could put me a few years ahead on the planed project. Cheers douglas

keith, try: Supscription Manager The federal publishing company p.o.box 199 Alexandria NSW 2015 Australia PH. 02 93539992 This was out of a two yaer old mag. I dont get it any more. I have seen a 308 into a zed in a street machine mag about 5 years ago. It ran an auto box. If you find more info let me know. I am stearing towards a sbc with a supra 5 speed for now. Having never played with a v8 before, i dont know what hangs on the left side of the block that will get in the way of the steering of a right hand drive car. I think that really is the only diff. The brake booster shouldnt be any more problem then it is for left hand drive. I havent read the book yet. Is that a problem? Cheers Douglas

Thanks guys, Most of the chev engines I have seen in this part of the world have auto boxes. I dont do autos and corvettes and camoros or similar are very thin on the ground for parts around here. I sure I will come up with some thing. This is a couple of years away. I need to finish my corolla race car first. BTW has anyone looked into the toyata v12. It is in the japan only century and puts out 280 hp with 400ft of torque. I bet it would sound great. The chev would be way cheeper though. Cheers Douglas

Howdy Z People, I thought I had read somewhere that you can use the standard trans on a hybrid Z. Has anyone done this? If so what is its torque limit. It would also seem that most of you have use a kit or the JTR instructions to do your swaps. Has anyone out there done it on there own? I am mainly interested in getting the engine as back as far as it can. Douglas