veritech-z

It's all about the details, if you don't have 'em, fake 'em! I was going for TEIN, I happened to have a marker that was pretty close to TEIN green, and figured what the heck?

Once again I post in the off-the-wall-stuff portion of this thread! Behold, break dancing 80s guy and a mkIII supra in front of a graffitti wall:

Hmmm, thought I had a picture of my car with SUs on it in running condition, but all I could find was this pic of the engine on a stand outside of the car... The choke stuff should have come with the carbs, if not, you may be able to rig one up with a universal choke cable. I've never done it, so I don't feel confident trying to talk you through it. as for the T fitting, look closely at this pic of my engine fuel injected, and imagine that instead of a fuel rai, those two braided lines went straight into the fuel bowls of the SUs: I actually ran that exact setup, but instead of the AN fittings I just had hose clamps on the carb fittings. You don't need braided AN line, you can just get 5/16" fuel line (I think that's the right size, it's been awhile...) Keep in mind you do NOT want a "T-valve", what you want is a "T-fitting". If you go shopping for a valve, you won't get what you need. You are just trying to split a single line into two lines, you don't need the capability of closing one off.

I don't think the Watanabe's that came on my model were as deep as those...great job, Chewie! I knew your car was going to be a tough competitor from the get go, great job on the engine!

You can do without the fuel rail if you get a "T" or "Y" fitting and split your line over the valve cover. Make sure you get the round top SUs, not the flat ones. The Puralator 4-6psi electric pump commonly sold at Advance Auto parts is only like $20, and will work very well for this application. I ran SUs with no filters, don't really recommend that, but there are more filter options out there than the factory box. K&N actually makes a bolt on filter for that application. I live in Florida, and cursed out my non-choke cable having SUs every day I tried to start them before 10am, so I highly recommend you install the choke cable.

what's wrong with Teddy Bears? While not as cool as the strawberries, I think a single Ronal Teddy Bear would make a rad spare tire...

Well, mine was ZF1-J. I decided that since Eric mentioned the Panzer gun in his intro for the contest, he was secretly asking for an off-the-wall destruction mobile, and somebody ought to give him one. I named it ZF1-J as a nod to the Robotech VF1-J that it was modelled after. I fabricated all the arms and legs by hand with tin snips from sheet metal drawer dividers we've got laying around at work-I used paper templates and folded the metal in a vise, then scuffed the original black finish so it would look more like flat black. The camo was done with acryllic paint, as was the rust on the floorboards. I took out the rally bar in the passenger floor board, and added a modeling clay (painted) fuel cell to the hatch. Also I used some bits of wire and more painted clay to make the protoculture matrix under the hood. The main gun is made of an Outback steakhouse ballpoint pen and half of a 7-11 slurpy straw. I flipped the calipers in the front so they would be on the correct side of the rotors, and modified the original wheels to resemble my Impul Hoshino RS-III's, trees and all. I cut out most of the spokes, and then used scissors to cut out some aluminum from a can of Coke to make the three spoke. The blaster burns were done with a Harbor Frieght MIG-100, set on low heat and wire speed 6 (seems the easiest way to simulate dumping a bunch of heat into something was just to dump a bunch of heat into it). The joints were made of wire loom cut out of some old saturn engine harnesses. I suspect that I fell short under the hood and in the interior, I'm already working on an idea for next time.

The first time is always wierd, now that there's a benchmark of what to do (and not do), I would hope that more people would be interested to throw their hat in the ring. you can comment on poll threads as well as vote, so I think that giving people the option to vote anonymously, but still give feedback about the models is definitely the way to go.

I'm not sure I follow, you're saying that the exhaust routes towards the "ground" in that pic, and comes back towards the "sky" to spin the blade (like a fuel saving tornado), as opposed to a normal automotive turbo that spins the blade from the edge?

I was wondering how different it would have gone if we had a Poll type thread setup for this, because you can cast a vote without anyone knowing your choice. I doubt anyone was really all that worried somebody's feelings would get hurt by their vote, but you never know.

1977 280z, originally auto/r180 but converted to 5-speed/R200 (both of which are in sad shape...diff clunk with all new mounts and fifth gear pop-out). P79 head on N42 block, cleaned up intake manifold with JSK fuel rail and factory ZXT exhaust manifold. XS power Tial-style 35mm wastgate on SSautochrome t3-to-t4 adapter, with Garrett T-04 (bought it used and that's all it says, I don't know the trim or anything) turbo. .83 A/R Rajay on-center exhaust housing (it came with a 1.15 tangential housing on it, with no provision for a downpipe-the rajay has a 4-bolt flange on it, so I went with that one). Nissan Sunny Pulsar GTi-R top mount intercooler and DSM blowoff valve. Megasquirt 1 fuel only ecu. ebay tokico 1" drop and energy suspension uerethane bushing kit. Impul hoshino racing RS-III 17X7 front, 17X8 rear wheels with Falken ziex 512 tires (215/45R17 front and 255/40R17 rear). Summit 16 gallon fuel cell with all -6 braided line. MSA solid front diff mount. Modified Saturn VUE redline front fascia and Acura RSX type-S side skirts. Acura TL mud gaurds and 1979 Mazda RX-7 fender mount mirrors.

MC Eschernetics T-04?

Oh, my mistake, I thought it was the 17th. Sorry!

Offset is the distance from the centerline of the wheel to the mounting flange of the wheel, so a wider wheel will be deeper with the same offset as a narrower wheel. My wheels are all +38 offset, but the front wheels are only 7" wide (whereas the rears are 8"). You can see the difference in the lip:

I've got a 255/40R17 mounted on a 17X8" wheel on my 280 and it doesn't rub (I know that tire is a bit wide for that wheel width...sure looks tough though)

So is the voting over?

There's got to be something happening on the inside of that housing that you can't see from the outside casting...Did you pick that up in the boneyard, or is it just something you saw somewhere? What did it come from?

I've got a camo valve cover I could sell you... you know you want it...

I'd like to paint a set of those cast coat iron color, that way you'd get that awesome machined from the future look with a retro patina...

No such thing as the wrong tools if you've got the determination I guess...I would think that would actually be harder to do than to just machine the things properly! You'd have to make sure your pressure was consistant, and the swipe was the same length...I've done some sketchy mechanic-ing in my day, but my hat's off to Norm!

That can't really be the way he did it, is it?

Looks like mine had to stop to tie his shoe...

There used to be many more wheel choices in this segment back when there were more cars on the road that required them. You're probably better off looking on ebay or used wheel sites like www.rbmotoring.com or www.pandagarage.com to get some retrotastic wheels. Or, you could get some new-old wheels like the Impul Silhouette from www.impul.co.jp, and I think Work still offers some of the classic styles in their new wheels catalog. If your budget can handle it, there's always www.kodiakracingwheels.com who will make you some custom wheels to your specifications. 0 offset will only work up to about 8" wide, then you need to start shopping for negative offsets. You can have about 4.5" of backspacing on standard struts, and a bit more on coilovers but I don't know exactly how much.

Tablet, I gave up on the mouse a long time ago! I don't think OTM will mind too much, we'll be back on topic soon enough I'm sure. It's just a tablet peripheral for my desktop, not a full tablet PC though.

Hmm, posting anything you say? Here's some Photoshop drawings I've been fooling around with for a little bit: At least the second one's sort of transportation related...