260DET

They are great, what an improvement, lots of night driving soming up

The rally computer things are usually mounted on a simple made up aluminium bracket bolted to the upper forward part of the passenger door inside. The face is angled at about 45 degrees to the door so that both the driver and navigator can see it.

Might be worth checking how many plates etc those Subaru R180 LSD's have. I had one and from an external examination there did not look to be many, so at the time a KAAZ looked a much better proposition. But a Torsen type center came up so the Sube one was sold. One point concerning stock non-LSD R180's, a four pinion one was made. From what I can tell they came out in all IRS S12's and some other Nissan cars of that time. IIRC the S13 changed to a short nose diff. It also seems that the case of the S12 long nose type R180's has a large 'K' marked on the top of the diff housing, a K case R180 as they are sometimes called. Their stub axle splines are a bit beefier too, they definately should take more of a hammering than the early R180's. NB edited to correct error para 3

Not having the faintest idea of your class, katmen, the cars you were talking about had well tied in roll cages? Stiffer body than stock allows the use of 300lb and more springs?

As far as going back to stock by doing away with the rear bar goes, don't forget that in many/most markets outside the US S30's had rear bars, stock My understanding is that the US cars had no rear bars so as to give a softer ride, nothing to do with the rear stepping out.

Yeh, those wheels look great, good value too. Like the perky colour as well, the 'emblem' near the front is a plus

The Peugeot conversion is worth a look, I picked up a cheap pair of used rotors in a wreckers then had them faced, just make sure that they are not worn down too much before you buy them. Using 260 hubs the center hole had to be opened out and the four retaining bolt holes redrilled, but that was it. They lined up with the calipers, without spacers, within .5mm which was good enough for me

Care to elaborate on that Jon?

Answer depends on a lot of things, particularly body stiffness, amount of power and spring rates. But the consensus among my lot seems to be that a light rear bar is the best, no rear bar is too extreme. A light bar is anything from 12 to 18mm, depending on the variables mentioned above.

Aftermarket ECU's are not hard at all, providing, the dyno man knows what he is doing with that particular ECU. In fact I would go with the recommendation of the dyno man you trust and want to use as to which one, rather than what some bloke on the internet says I have a basic knowledge of auto electrics and was able to instal the hardware and wire it all up. All the diagrams etc are on line. The car then went on the dyno to be started and tuned in one session. The biggest hit with a quality ECU is the initial cost, from then on there should be nothing more than any ordinary maintenance such as an occasional injector clean if required.

Always something of interest around here On the front camber issue, it seems almost universal in Oz to relocate the lower control arm inner pickup point and instal an eccentric plate type adjuster at the same time. There are some issues potentially involved with doing that but in practice it does not seem to result in any significant problems, unless more track is a problem. Most therefore do not use camber plates, on mine the three holes in the tower were relocated a bit to give a bit more castor and camber but that was it. If I was doing a ground up rebuild again the tower tops would be modified with more caster and camber adjustment in mind though. Here is a pic of my front track enhanced car courtesy LCA gained -3.5 degrees camber and 10mm wider hubs, wheels are 8".

The stock ones looked unsuitable to bend very much Jon so we basically cut and shut them using a spare set as well. There is a standardised welding and heating procedure for such jobs so I was told by the pro who did it. Incidentially the steel Nissan used is apparently of a good quality and very suitable for welding.

What ECU are you going to use Roaces? With the MoTec on my present engine MAP, throttle position, water and air temp sensors are used to give outstanding results. The air/fuel ratio is a lot steadier and much more consistent on my engine than the one shown on the dyno sheet linked above by Battle Pope. Its the only way for performance, reliability and economy IMHO with a transplant engine

Here is a pic to update progress, incidentially it was found that the basic 280ZX CV axle was the same for the R180 and R200 diffs, one of each is being used. The ex 4WD R180 diff stub axle is shown on the left, followed by the CV axle components, on the right is the stock companion flange modified to adapt to the six bolt CV flange. That modification involved making up the six holed circular plate you can see and welding it to the stock companion flange. Actually a blank plate was welded to the comp flange first followed by the machining, to take care of any distortion caused by the welding. Incidential parts such as the spring loaded internal buffers and their retainers are not shown. I just hope to hell that my measurements were right and it will all fit in

Designed these so that they just clear the brake rotors, with a front mounted steering rack its about the best that can be done. So they won't give as much Ackermann as may be required but maybe some is better than none. Pictured is the left stock arm at the top, arrow points to the car's outside. Comments?

Pushing the front wheels forward will give you more positive castor, which may be a good thing.

It may allow the engine to warm up more quickly, by blocking cooler water from the radiator access to the engine.

Nice question and I don't know the answer. But because the inlet sits above the exhaust on the L series its higher than it needs to be. Solution - dump the boat anchor L and put in a crossflow engine

Marvellous, if I was a man of money JC would get a air ticket etc out to Oz to do a few laps in my 260+. And that would put a smile on his face for sure Ah well, great to hear about the adventures of a new Zed wherever it is.

Its very difficult to advise someone else specifically on wheel fit unless you are familiar with their car and the wheels. You can't go wrong by measuring what backspace will clear everything and then projecting the various widths you have in mind to see if they clear. Forget measuring offset for that purpose, backspace is the important one. I've seen two cars apparently the same involving identical wheels where one fits and the other doesn't. Inexplicable but true

Yeh, bang for buck just about any Japanese engine is preferable to a BMW lump, don't get me started on those over priced ............. Hope the Q45 conversion goes well Roaces, should turn out a beauty.

Hope not, those engines have their own automatic transmission anyway, its the lack of a manual transmission which is the problem.

Be good to make this topic a sticky, there are plenty of VH engines around cheap, all we need is to be able to fit a decent gearbox on the back. Anyone have any firm knowledge of which strong, preferably, Nissan box would be easiest to adapt?

When as a precaution a new Exedy clutch plate was fitted to mine, it wouldn't disengage. Even though nothing else was changed including the pressure plate. Had to go to a smaller diameter slave cylinder. The facing on the Exedy plate was quite rough in texture so my theory is it was this that extended the disengagement process, so requiring more travel. Nice smooth but firm clutch action though.

That should be excellent ez, it won't break in a hurry. This thread has turned out to be the R180 CV conversion bible just about. To celebrate here is a pic of my bank busting Torsen type center compared with the stock four pinion non LSD K case one