260DET

Ha ha, you are more than capable to work this out and then advise others whats right for the Z31

Its interesting stuff, thats why us HybridZers do our own thing, as I said on a racing forum 'anyone can walk into a showroom and buy a fast lap time'. Just one thing, using dot points is a reader friendly way to set out a series of facts/propositions, rather than face us with a wall of words

In addition to what has already been said, lowering the car as much as is practical reduces drag and improves stability by reducing the amount of under car air and the effective frontal area. Maybe its always assumed that this is an important point but its hardly ever mentioned.

I was sort of joking about the standard R35 being too cheap Tony, hence the But the R&D on it would have been very high and obviously that money has to be recouped somehow so actual production costs are only part of the story. There does seem to be this perception thats its only a Nissan though so it should be priced accordingly, which seems to ignore the actual performance aspect. It would be interesting to look at the production costs of a few Euro high performance cars and compare them, my bet is the R35 would turn out to be cheap by comparison considering its performance.

The 'problem' is not that the V spec is too expensive, the problem is the standard one is too cheap. So maybe Nissan could narrow the price gap that way Anyway, bring on a TT 370Z.

Everyone is not doing it and with good reason. Its a '70's car not a current model which is designed and styled to have bigger wheels. All the race Zeds I know have 15" wheels, except one which has 16" to accomodate big brakes, wide tyres and 500whp. I have yet to see a S30 with 17" wheels that looks good, particularly because most of them don't have wide rims. Oh dear, this is way off topic, stop right now

If you look at what is involved with the V-spec then its easy to see where the extra money goes to, its not like they just stuck a couple of badges and GT stripes on it. Rather than look at it as a Nissan it should be looked at as a performance car and judged on that basis. That seems to be a bit difficult for the badge snobs but I don't think they are the target market anyway. Whatever, the new 370Z is my kind of car, hope they do a twin turbo in that soon.

$499 seems to be a lot for such a simple looking device, suppose the R&D bill would be high though. Yes I know my neck is worth more than that but economics are relevant to just about everything, including safety.

What if the girl thinks the car has central locking? Too dumb, dump her anyway?

The control arms are moved out to give more negative camber and to widen the front track, both good things for the S30, if it going to be raced. Slotting the strut tops alone will not give you anywhere near the ~3.5* neg needed for a race car on radial semi slicks. Like everything to do with suspension its all about compramise and balance, altering one thing to give a benefit invariably produces a negative as well. Which is what makes it all so interesting.

That looks like it has turned out to be a good swap choice Frank, nice find. Will that rubber doughnut tailshaft connector at the back of the gearbox stand up to the stress which will be involved? Not really a BMW fan myself, prefer Jap engines and the LS series. But for what you are doing, parts availability and aftermarket support is everything so the Bimmer donk makes sense. Hope it all comes up to expectations, your vehicle choice is spot on.

Depends on how much $ is going to be spent on the engines and their respective weights, both should give 50/50 weight distribution although the V6 may not quite. If you are willing to do the SR20DET properly then I agree with Savage42's choices.

Yeh, from my S30 days I seem to recall that the suspension and steering links are not the same length though pivot to pivot. If that is so then the best that can be done with a S30 is to get the bump steer curve into a position where it has a minimum adverse effect, because BS cannot be entirely eliminated. So my comment on various thickness bump steer spacers was made in consideration of the above and the final ride height which is yet to be determined as I read the situation. And because Dave wants to track this car I think which may mean further changes in the future.

Agree, thats the best I've ever seen. Note the front air dam (with a splitter) and how it smoothly blends in with the flares, very nice work.

I do clockwise circuits so the present setup which has more weight on the two right side wheels suits. Looked at making some changes but the effect diagonally (wedge) was contra to what was hoped to be achieved so it was left as was. But yeh, others will actually have redistributed weight for various road courses so their experience will be invaluable.

If the car is going to be lowered then relocating the inner LCA pivot is a good thing, keeping in mind that by so doing you are potentially changing the roll center and camber. Re those bump steer/roll center spacers, it would be best to assemble the suspension and steering at the preferred ride height and then check the bump steer. This can then be adjusted by using anything that will temporarily act as a spacer. Once the final spacer thickness is known do it permanently.

Depends whart you are doing with the car, sometimes its an advantage to have a particular weight bias for a road course. For street use its not very important within reason.

My opinion, S130 body kits look gay. Arita front (see Vendors section here) plus a modest rear spoiler from MSA is the go.

LS* for NA, RB30ET for turbo. Thats bang for buck and a relatively straight forward install.

The best angle to duct air into a IC is at 90 degrees to the core.

My first ride? Sorry, forget her name

On my 280ZX the IC is mounted vertically in front of the radiator with diffuser style ducting welded to it. The converging angle of the ducting is ~12 degrees which means that the duct opening is smaller than the IC. According to the aero research I did if there is too much air ducted in then the air becomes turbulent and so reluctant to pass through the IC or radiator core, less air flowing straight will pass through the core more readily. Thats the theory, in practice it all seems to work fine on my car.

Here we go, you can use launch contol until the GT-R goes into orbit http://www.gtrblog.com/index.php/parts/ppg/?blog=4

Have heard of glass shattering for no obvious reason, something about it not being tempered properly or some such tech reason.

Looks like a two fingered salute