veritech-z

With all the hype over Mikelly's new M, I forgot all about that! How is that thing coming along?

It seems so tempting to send them some of the S30 drawings, but it just feels so suspect to me...I'd like a free bodykit, but it's like a real life pop-up ad or something. Turbo-meister, that was really cool of you to check those guys out for everyone, above and beyond the call for real.

I'm kind of at a trough in my motivation as well...I'm in the middle of installing both Megasquirt and doing a full poly bushing kit, and being under the car that much has me thinking about floor pans and frame rails now...and then there is the general state of the bodywork before I can get a real paint job...Both outside door handles are broken on one side and lift out when you open the doors...Sigh...I need to see a burnout video. Somebody please post some video of their car doing smoky burnouts, so we can all get some motivation back! I did do a sort of half-assed polishing job on my turbo compressor housing, but since I haven't built my manifold yet, that was pretty much just for something to do at work today...

What a cool swap! Are you running that engine N/A for now, or is the air filter over there just to keep junk out of the throttle body? That turbo looks so good sitting on top like that, I wish I could do something like that on my L28...stupid non-crossflow design... Nice work with that steering shaft, by the way, looks pretty solid. Is that turbo going to clear the hood? How are you going to route the oil feed/return lines?

AK-Z, are you talking about bumpSTEER? If his car is on the bumpstops, it would have 0 suspension compression capability, which would make for a super stiff ride every time he hit a dip/bump in the road. It would be easy enough for 260chiles to verify this, just go look at it and see if you can see the rod portion of the strut or not. A bent strut would probably exhibit the same behavior, but I've never experienced that so I can't give any advice on how to check for that. I would guess it would leave a mark of some kind on the bent part of the shaft? It would probably make a loud clunk or something like that when it hit the bent part.

I like the turbine wheels too. I had a bunch of that type of wheel until recently, I just got rid of a similar set that had more spokes a few months back. There are some NICE ssr fin wheels on ebay right now that are too rich for my blood but would be sick to have on a z. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1,1&item=330024859760&ih=014&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT

I wonder if there is some equation to find that out? I bet there is somewhere. Like I said earlier though, it isn't really to scale. If I went with this design, I'd more than likely implement that idea, it seems like sound logic to me.

Thicker sway bar shouldn't have too much effect on the speed bump situation. The point of a speed bump IS to get you to slow down, though...How is the ride otherwise? Is it only the speed bump thing getting you down?

How would you tell them apart visually, would there be marks left by the shot-peening process? Like little impact divots? I've never seen a shot peened rod, so I'm just curious.

The boat powered volvo was doing mid tens if I remember correctly...

I want to say the boat powered volvo had around 8 inch wide wheels, but that was just an estimate from the side of the track. They weren't original wheels, that's for sure-plus it could have been mini-tubbed, I never saw inside it.

I just tried a general internet search to see if the nissan part numbers for the turbo rods differed from the non-turbo rod, but I was not able to find any resources for that. Does anybody know of a place to check the part numbers? If the turbo rod was indeed different from the factory, it should carry a different part number as well.

Oops, I saw the part where he was using 300zx rotors, but didn't think about the fact that the 280zx calipers would line up differently than the toyota calipers. My fault.

I stomped on an old 305 firebird in my ragged out old 280 that was bone stock. This guy's head is in the right place, but he could have chosen a stronger powerplant. I've got a picture somewhere of a 240 volvo wagon that I saw at Moroso that had a Penta marine engine shoved into it. He had his hood cut out so that the turbo plumbing would fit, and the car would pull the front wheels into third gear. Now that was a sleeper for sure!

What the heck is a mazda road star? Never heard of that one before. Do they make an AE86 carolla? I'd be interested in one of those maybe. Did you ever get a chance to find out about the cd's? I'm looking for "the pillows". Thanks Terry!

What a cool europa...I'd buy that weight figure, they are 700kg according to Gran Turismo 4, which is almost as reliable as wikipedia.

Makes sense, but would that affect the velocity of the exhaust adversly?

12-3 through 12-8 is when we're going. Congrats on the 30 year anniversary! We'll have just passed one year on October 1st, so that's kind of our anniversary present to each other. That and the Teacup Cat we just bought that will never exceed 3-5 lbs even when full grown. Science is so cool...

That was going to be my tactic of last resort, but I was able to get them out pretty easily once I heated the LCA around the hole a little bit.

Why didn't anybody tell me that you have to press out the old outer bushing sleeve on the front LCA?! Note to self: don't tell anyone else about this either, that way I can revel in their frustration...heh heh heh...Oh crap, I just posted that! Curses..foiled again... Man what a PIA this operation is turning out to be! Lessons learned today: Do NOT put the inner sleeve in before you put both bushing in. My brilliant idea was to put the sleeve in one bushing, squish that one in, and then try to squeeze the other one in around it, and I think this is the cause of my bushings not going in all the way. This condition makes it EXTREMELY difficult to fit the tranny crossmember back into it's little slots. That took about an hour and 20 minutes by itself. Also, my new tactic to get the old bushings out consists of finding an impact socket that is JUST big enough to slip through the bushing hole, and then just press as much of the old bushing out as it can with the 30 ton press at my job, then wire wheel out the rest of the remaining bushing residue. (this strategy also works for pressing out the outer bushing sleeve on the LCA, but that required the use of a torch to break the rust) I caught on to this the other day, but it took three more bushings to develop the addendum to this strategy: coat the socket with gel-lube or some other spray lube so that it is easier to remove from the hole it will now be wedged in... Progress to date: front and rear sway bar end links, mustache bar bushings, TC rod bushings, tranny cross member bushings, front left LCA bushing and tie rod boot. More as it comes...(it's been raining a LOT here, and I only have one day a week to really get anything done on the car. I'm installing Megasquirt[which henceforth will be known as camo-squirt as it pertains to the zzzap! -you'll see why when it's finished) at the same time, so my time is at a premium)

I'm going in December. My wife and I are booked to see O, Zoomanity, and some others I don't remember, but she said the beetles one was on vacation while we are going to be there. Also planning to see the Grand Canyon and the Hoover dam. Any other recommended site seeing? We don't gamble much, but I want to see the desert. I've never been out west, so I'm looking forward to it.

I just found this link in a thread that was asking the same question, and apparently you have to actually REMOVE material from the face of the rotor to make it line up on a 280z hub, not add a spacer like on the 240z hubs. Here is the link: http://zhome.com/rnt/FordPower/BrakeUpdate.html

That's not a breadvan, that's a ferrari Hearse! Going to that final racetrack in the sky...Does look like a europa though. I like it, I think somebody should do a z like that.

Just to clarify the way the differences work: The mechanical secondaries are opened with a small addition to the throttle linkage that engages them at a given pedal angle, whereas the vacuum secondaries are opened via a vacuum signal, kind of like how your vacuum advance distributor would work. So what 280zone said is totally right, the mechanical would be better for performance/spirited driving and the vacuum should give you better fuel economy for driving around town. edit-Pop you beat me to it! that popped up right when I posted...

Hey Terry, I got my art degree from the University of South Florida, which was more of a how should I put it..."forward thinking" art department, along the lines of "I'm an artist, so anything I do is art, and who are you to question me?" type of mentality. I was part of a small group of students that were trying to bring art back to the art department, so we were actually making stuff people might want to look at. It was fun though. In Sarasota, Florida there is a really good school called the Ringling School of Art and Design that has an illustration bachelor's program. They used to intern you with the Disney animation studio that was run out of MGM Studios theme park in Orlando, but now that they aren't animating out of there, I don't know how they're working that out. I've heard a lot of good things about that school though. Transformer guns kinda looked more like super soakers than anything else if he's really going to change it, but I think it looks really good now, and besides: he drew it for you, not for me, right? Gas stations, you say? I feel a new film coming on..."Initial Q"