strotter

Back in the day - way back - I seem to remember "Z-car" universally meant Datsun 240Z (at least on the left coast). This was generally true, even among the muscle-car types. I even seem to remember (and this is vague, vague) a Car & Driver or Motor Trend article about the Camaro called "The Other Z-Car". Just to add fuel to the fire.

Is it just me, or does that bus look like one of those SUV's with the "dubs" on it?

... and thanks for the fish.

I have some friends who had an experience which may help explain why most aliens are seen by drunken hunters in the middle of nowhere. My friends live in the foothills not far from here. They built the house themselves on the side of a hill overlooking the San Joaquin valley - a really gorgeous site at night, by the way. Well, they were walking home from a party at one of their neighbor's houses, a bit squiffed ( not a lot, but enough that they didn't want to drive even on a gravel access road), when they got to the front door. As Dennis fumbled with the keys, Lorraine turned around waiting and, lo and behold, an alien was standing on the other side of their yard looking at them. Silently, she grabbed Dennis's arm and he, too turned to look. Sure enough, he saw the alien as well. They tell the story so that they were totally, absolutely sure of what they were looking at. Its head turned with quick, birdlike movements, it's huge, almost glowing eyes looked at them with with an unbreaking stare, its tiny body looked as if it couldn't possibly support the massive head, the whole nine yards. A truly sublime moment. Dennis, not impressed at all, reached over and hit the porch light switch, which kicked on a series of floods all over their yard: and they saw... ... a dumb-a$$ deer staring at them like a retard. I really believe that a lot of the "alien sighting" can be attributed to this "mis-perception". Are there aliens out there, somewhere in the cosmos? Sure. Probably plenty of them. Are there cute little aliens experimenting with people's butts and zooming around in the cool flying cars I was promised as a kid? No way.

Reuters, 12:14:03 16:40 "Despite day-long difficulties with traction and leaves, Trotter, driving for Jack-Stand Racing, managed to hold the lead until lap 21 where, upon noticing he was not in the car, went home to take a nap." (Thanks to classicZcars.com for raw materials.)

Wouldn't a Z be considered a GT (sort of in the Italian sense)? I've always broken them down like this: >Open-top two-passenger vehicles as "Sports Cars", the Italians refer to them as "spyders". Generally small, 4-or-6 cylinders, not the most intense performance but for sure the most intense fun. Triumph TR-6 and Spitfire, MG -A and -B and Midget, Fiat 850 and 124, some of the Porsches, so on. The Miata would be a good example today. Aimed at entry-level buyers, mostly young people with some disposable (read: parental) income. >Closed-top two-passenger vehicles as "Grand Touring Cars", such as the Daytona Ferrari (most of 'em), the GT-40, most of the XK-E's, the MGBGT, Triumph Stag, the Jensen Interceptor, so on. Generally larger than sports-cars, and more powerful, with more amenities. Some were 2+2's, but not many, and even then the back seats were a package tray covered with vinyl. A "gentlemen's express". For older, more sophisticated buyers with plenty of cash. Mid-life-crisis specials. >High-powered good handling small coupes (both open and closed top) as "Sport Compact". This definition isn't about design so much as execution. The ones I was aware of when I was a kid were the European coupes, such as the BMW 2002 (and 1602 before that) in the late 60's, the Fiat 124's, like that. The first Japanese ones I can think of were the Datsun 510 and the Toyota SR (which Road & Track said stood for "Secret Racer"). Again, aimed at entry-level buyers, young, with enough money to buy a car but too much sense to buy a sports car. So by my reckoning, the Z was an inexpensive GT which went ( in the U.S.) up against the MGBGT, the Triumph GT-6, the Porsche 911, the Opel GT, the Saab Sonnet, and so on. The term "sports car" has been thoroughly mutilated by Wall Street over the last 20 years. I mean, once they started using the word "sport" when referring to pickup trucks, it was over.

Regarding braking, I have to agree with Forrest - I have little experience with ABS, but I can tell you definitively that tire-squealing panic-stops take significantly more distance than controlled braking. Since I was a little nug, I've had the habit of practicing stops in every vehicle I drive. My father started me in the habit. Go out to a remote stretch of road, drive at cruising speed, get on the binders. Keep doing it until you get it perfect - a couple of hundreds trials, not one or two. Dry road/wet road, smooth surface/rough surface, flat road surface/cambered road surface. It's something I do with every car I own, I think of it as part of the "getting to know" a car. Everyone should do it, both fun and educational. Come in handy a couple of times over the years.

Ooooh, mid-life-crisis! Love it! I told the woman I was "at that age", I had to get a mistress or a sports-car. She told me to go with the car, but if that got too expensive, we'd reevaluate. So now I'm spending money as fast as I possibly can. Just recently turned 47 - what does that do to the average? NOTHING, nobody on this board is average! Unless you think of them as an "average" bunch of wild-eyed grease-stained horsepower-crazy junkyard-living apex-clipping throttle-stomping brake-burning wrench-turning gas-guzzling mutants, of course.

Dan, it *is* a WC. There's a T56 on ebay right now, in Sacramento. no bellhousing or shifter. It has 19 hours, 49 minutes left - that'll put it around noon tomorrow - when I'll be at work. Sigh. I don't even know if the tranny in the car is really munched. Maybe it's fixable. I haven't had the energy to even jack the car up and look underneath. Maybe during the long Thanksgiving weekend.

Saturday morning, beautiful, clear and cool, coming home from Pick-n-Pull in Stockton on '99. The wiper-motor out of a '77 280 I just found is in the back. Slowly moving past a pickup, I'm in the middle lane doing about 80 or so, traffic closing behind me pretty quick (maybe 10 higher than me), I'll just move past the truck and get out of their way, no need to impress the natives with the shock and awe of my secret weapon; it's too nice a morning. The 327 has been running *sweetly* lately, turning 2400 or so, the exhaust is singing (not too loud, not to quiet, *just right*), the overdrive ratio of the T5 is about perfect, I could see taking a long drive like this, like to Wyoming. Thought I'd give the "slow wiper syndrome" another shot, thinking about how it may be the bearings/bushings in the motor getting tight after years and years, I'll take apart this one and get out the micrometer and check the clearances and... tink! Uh, must've picked up something from the road surface, didn't see anything, gotta be more careful, I already picked up a big nail in a sidewall and had to replace the whole tire! Man, that was expensive, I'd hate to have to do that again! You know, though, I ought to go back to the alignment shop and have them check the toe-in again, it's been getting a little "darty", seems to pull right or left over rough road surfaces a bit. Wouldn't doubt driving in and out of the backyard put it out of alignment - I've hit that curb a bit hard a couple of times... Jerk! Huh? Jerk Jerk! - pause - !thunk! back-end locks up! Swerving left, towards the fast lane and the acacia bushes! Pull it back, scare the *crap* out of the pickup driver... What the fu- !!! Rolling again but losing speed fast, everything in the back including the wiper assembly's about in my lap, feels as if the e-brake is on, and on hard! Mainbearing failure? Glance at the mirror, traffic's right on top of me, closing *fast*, I've got maybe five seconds before they get on their binders, gotta get out of this lane! This must be a brake or suspension failure, but I have control, tire failure? No, it'd pull, floor it, RPM's too low no torque, try for a downshift need more power I can't stop in the fast lane! Tranny is stuck in 5th! Clutch does nothing, clutch failure? Truck is gone, 100 feet, 200, I'm losing speed fast, jerking hard every few milleseconds, there's a big opening to the right, kick the turn-signal on, may as well give 'em *some* warning, swing across three lanes. There's a shoulder but not much, it becomes ditch three or four feet past the tarmac, I'll go threre if I have to but it isn't very inviting - Offramp ahead a few hundred yards, Jeez am I gonna make it even that far? Speed's down to maybe fifty and dropping, I must've left skid marks behind me on the freeway, I may as well try a downshift, nothing else worked, screw the clutch, glad I learned how to power-shift, oh Lord, there's *smoke*! What the hell *is* this? Suddenly *pop!* it's out of fifth and starts rolling freely, but with a horrible grinding sound, won't engage fourth, alright there's three more, rough metal on metal, loud (did that even start just now? has it been doing it the whole time?) But we *are* rolling, hit the throttle hard and try third, it engages! OK, let's get some velocity, RPM's still up and floored, it starts to pull, check the rearview again folks are moving over I don't have to say hi to the ditch, speed coming back up again, thirty, forty, passenger side rolling on the gravel, one more look in the mirror and, miracle of miracles, behind the pack of fast traffic there's a *great big hole*! They clear me, still at speed. Glad I installed roller rockers and lifters, here's the ultimate test I guess, missed the shift a couple of times. I move back over onto the asphalt, finally the exit, and it's over. I run the stop at the end of the offramp, thank goodness there's no traffic. On the frontage road I pop it into neutral (still thinking it's a clutch failure, but the noises were wrong) and pull it off onto a wide spot. The motor is idling just fine, and in neutral the loud grinding sound from the clutch is just a "click-click-click-click". Engaging the clutch makes it worse, much worse. OK, no clutch. Shut it off, remember that I have no cell-phone and the woman is probably still snoozing (as is her habit on Saturday mornings). Well, if I need to I can walk, but that'd be sort of giving up. Under-body inspection reveals no fluids, no visible mechanical problems. Some smoke is coming from the bellhousing. Doesn't smell like clutch, though, not burned clutch at least - it smells like hot motor oil. Could it have lost a rear seal? Dipstick says plenty of oil. Tranny fluid then? Get back in the car and operate the clutch, it feels perfectly normal. Uh oh, I'm starting to think the tranny may have a problem. The tranny I just bought. In July. For Five HUNDRED dollars. Damn. Futzing with the shifter, it feels - funny. The action isn't smooth, and there's a distinct rattle when moving the shifter. It won't move to the first/second detent at all, or reverse. Nor will it go to fourth. But, it will engage third and fifth, which means I won't be walking ten miles home. Starting it up and experimenting, I discover that it'll make a rattle/growl in neutral, but engaging the clutch increases the volume ten-fold. Down that road lies mechanical death. Shut it down, put it into third, check traffic, hit the starter, not enough torque to start it in gear. OK, clutch in, engage first, start it up. Rattle clatter clunk, but it's sitting there, the clutch is working. Rev the snot out of it, if I'm going to have it apart a new clutch plate isn't too much more work, engage the clutch; Houston, we have motion. Did you know that it's possible to drive from north Morada to north Lodi without stopping? Even for signs? Even for lights? Even to climb up on your curb, across your lawn, and into your backyard? Well, it is. Just thought you'd like to know. Mind you, it wouldn't work if there was a policeman behind you, but it *can* be done. So I'm back in the "looking for parts" phase of my project, a definite downer from the "showing it off" phase. But on the plus side, it gives me a chance to paint the engine compartment, since the motor's going to be out, and all...

Would replacing the poly w/ rubber in the rear also soften the "small bump" response a bit? I seem to recall a post some time ago recommending rubber bushings on the T/C rod so as to make the ride a bit more comfortable, less "intense", something I need badly - my suspension setup provides a "vibrating massage" on all but the smoothest road surfaces...

Second Tim's suggestions - I used the hose trick extensively. A point he didn't make, though, is illumination. Keeping the area you're working on well lit will help tremendously. Direct sunlight, which you'd think would be best, isn't. A high-intensity light put into various positions, even in the shade, will show flaws you didn't think you had. Put the light near to the body, shining sideways toward your eyes. Also, keep priming the thing between sandings. Different colors in the area you're working on will confuse your eyes. Some quick-drying sandable rattlecan works well for this. Make sure it's all sanded off before you put on the real stuff, though.

It was taken from a mid/late 80's Volvo. It's the inlet for the Bosch mass-air sensor. It's 5.25". The original unit had an arm which curves 45 degrees or so, and is about 8" long. The inlet can be stretched to 3". As you can see, I cut a bunch of it off, then connected it (via a sleeve) to a couple of connectors off a Ford product. Basically spent the afternoon digging around Pick-n-pull.

I posted some pics in my personal gallery. Any questions, email me.

Remember when you start swapping cams, the Vortecs have a lift-limit of about .460". Most of that's in the springs, but you can do some simple head work to increase it to over .500". Only if a problem if you pick a higher-lift cam. Get the ECM and all the associated electronics. The hotrod guys over at 3rdGen just love the truck stuff, they discovered years ago like you that it's cheaper and more available!

There's also the "Carnivore" program. It is a pattern-matching / artificial intelligence system that monitors *all* personal network traffic, looking for "suspicious activity". "With a court order, the FBI can install the Carnivore system at the facilities of an ISP, and then use it to monitor all Internet traffic and communications moving through that ISP. The FBI has consistently claimed that the system filters data traffic and only retains packets which the court has authorized investigators to obtain. " If you know anything about networking, you'll understand that the system has to monitor *every* byte coming in and out of the system. That means that if a suspected terrorist or crack dealer uses the same ISP as you, *your* communications are being monitored. The system is arranged in such a way that humans need to review all the output, looking for "relevant" data. Non-targeted data is then discarded - unless of course there's something of "imminent" interest. Needless to say, privacy advocacy groups are pretty berserk about this. Do a Google search for more information.

I'll bet her problem won't be that you have an expensive hobby - women more or less expect us to act like children, needing toys, acting like idiots now and then - but that you're hiding something from her. Hiding something from the mate is a bad idea. Her thinking will be "If he hides something as trivial as spending money on a car from me, what else will he hide from me?" And she'll be right. It's a question of trust. The thing about trust is that once you lose it, you don't get it back. Don't B.S. the woman you're hoping to spend the rest of your life with. She is *way* more important that a car. Thirty years from now you'll still be looking at her beautiful face and wondering how a guy like you got so lucky - and the car will be a distant memory, at best. Also: she's not your mommy, don't expect her to act like one, don't treat her like one. Neither of you make unilateral decisions, you make them together, compromising as necessary. As time goes on you'll have your jobs and responsibilities, she'll have hers. She likely already understands this. This means that if she feels it's important to save some money put away, it should be important to you, too. She's thinking about a safe home maybe, a buffer in case things go economically bad, a nest-egg in case something unexpected comes up, independence. But your input counts, too: you need the project for your own reasons (some kind of emotional reasons associated with your masculinity or something; I'm not always clear on the "emotional" things). What I would suggest is that you come totally clean to her, explain the project and the money you've been socking away. You may need to compromise on some things, not a problem. To make her more comfortable, you should probably rethink the *goals* of the project, rather than the project itself. She knows: 1. You both need transportation (meaning 2 functioning cars); 2) Functioning cars are expensive; 3) Functioning cars occasionally break down, leaving you stranded; 4) A third car is a useful luxury, if it's reliable enough to take up the slack when an everyday car breaks down; 5) The amount of money you spend on the project is equivalent to the cost of a newer everyday kind of car. OK, instead of building a racecar that's good for nothing else, build a high-performance car that can be used for daily transportation. Maybe not *every* day, but a getting-to-work-if-the-other-car-breaks-down kind of thing. If you're a good-enough mechanic, you can build your dream-car for *less* than the cost of, say, a 3-year old Taurus. This implies that you can build your toy in such a way that she can, if necessary, climb into it and go to work - a *much* more demanding and interesting goal than a straight zoom zoom racer, anyway.

Zero, I have limited experience painting (I've done three paint jobs now), but I did them poorly so I have *lots* of experience cleaning up bad work. Sanding and polishing are for sure going to be the way to clean up the runs and sags, but you have to use the right tools. When sanding out runs and sags, the most important thing to avoid is damaging the paint next to the problem - often it'll be thin right there, as if the run sucked up all the paint around it. I learned to mask off the areas adjacent to the problem - go to a car paint shop and get some good quality masking tape, the blue or green stuff. Mask off with two layers of tape about one inch all around the high spot. Then use some 400 wet-or-dry paper to knock down the high spot. Soak the paper for a few minutes before you start, to soften it and make it more pliable. To keep it wet, I found that a spray bottle (like a large 409 bottle or something) is the easiest way, that won't soak you like a hose would. You'll still get wet and dirty, but not as much. When you sand, you *must* use a backer-board of some kind. I have a couple of store-bought ones, but for runs and sag I just use a dead-flat piece of oak about 1" X 2" X 1/4", which I just wrap the paper around and hold carefully on the edges. When you're sanding, work primarily along a flat direction on the surface - try to avoid the temptation of sanding along the run or sag, there's a good chance you'll roll the backer-board sideways and tear up good paint. When you start tearing up the masking tape, you're getting fairly close. It doesn't have to be perfect, just "better". Sags (where the paint has formed a "wave", more-or-less horizontal) take forever. Expect to spend the better part of a day fixing a sag. You likely won't be able to make the paint perfect: all you need to do is smooth the "curl" end of the wave, at the bottom, so it isn't as visible to the eye. It's ultra extra important not to cut through the paint below the wave - again, it's thin there compared to the paint above. Tape below it. When you're satisfied with the area, remove the masking tape and clean thoroughly with soap and water. Then, get out some 600 wet-or-dry, put it onto a backer-board, and work the area(s) again, this time onto the good paint next to the work area. The idea is that the paint will feel "satiny" (if your fingers can feel anything at this point). Keep it quite wet. You only need to work it for a minute, light pressure. Again, be super-careful not to cut through good paint. Finally polishing. You *need* a rotary polisher. Really. Not one of those "eccentric" things, a real rotary. You can get a cheap one for less that $50, it'll be useful later on for other jobs. They're kind of intimidating at first, spinnin' around like crazy and throwing stuff onto everything within a mile, but they work really well. For polishing compound, 3M makes this wonderful stuff called "Imperial Microfinishing Compound Liquid" (p/n 051131-06011). It's a liquidy material with silica (gritty particles) in it. You moisten the pad with the compound, kid of rub it onto the paint, and start polishing. You keep on working it 'till the compound has dried off. You have to be careful not to "burn" the paint, which is where you dig a trench into it, but other than that it's just good old gettin' dirty fun. It will probably take a couple or even three applications on a given spot. When you're done you'll need to take a shower, and wash the car again. Fixing runs and sags is extremely time-consuming. I have spend days and days cleaning up errors that more careful painting wouldn't have created in the first place.

Boys boys boys. High taxes do not equal "socialism", "communism", or any other "ism". In general, taxes are high because we demand a great deal from our governments (local, state, and federal). People complain about "affordable health care", but *somebody* has to pay. They want to "put the criminals away", but they don't want to build (very expensive) prisons. They want good roads, but they don't want high vehicle or fuel taxes. They want safe streets, but they don't want to pay a decent wage for cops. They want a good education for their kids, but they don't want higher property taxes. They want a politician that actually knows his job, but they don't want a political animal. They want everything to be OK, but they don't want to go to the trouble of voting. They want complex, difficult problems solved, but they don't want to do the research to understand them or make the hard choices. They want to pay less taxes, OK; what will they give up? Roads, cops, schools, safety, what? Meals on Wheels for that old lady next door? Code inspectors to make sure your house won't fall down on you? Air traffic controllers? Lawyers to defend the innocent and prosecute criminals? Chemist who make sure their water doesn't have poison in it? Accountants to make sure some giant corporation is ripping people off? What? The guy who fixes the stoplight, the woman who looks for dirty conditions in restaurants, the man who investigates the kid who always has bruises? What about the men and women who take up arms to defend the country? Who's going to do it if government doesn't? When was the last time somebody at the ballot box said to themselves "This is a great law, but how will it be paid for? What service will this cut?" So, *What should we cut*? There are books to balance, the money doesn't grow on trees. And remember this: the other guy is no more likely to give up *anything* to make your life easier than you are to make his easier.

If you're talking about GM type, a 1/2" socket will do. If a Ford (judging by your username), dunno.

Summit Racing has a variety. Go to their site (http://www.summitracing.com) and enter "block hugger" into their keyword search. Decent prices (not great, but decent).

Actually, there *is* a big difference between stuffing a SBC into that Mazda and stuffing one into a Z. Both the Z and the Miata are sweet-handling cars from the factory. A Z with a SBC is sweet-handling too, center of mass hasn't been moved much. However, as was mentioned above, look at the center of mass of that motor relative to the front axles - it's right on top of 'em. That car is a pig on skates when the curves come up. The cool thing about the Z is that, from a hybrid point of view, you can have it all. That car has only one thing - power. Also, Cusp is totally correct in his assessment of the Z. (History lesson begins:) Remember, in 1969, the Japanese car industry was *not* taken seriously in this country. Honda didn't sell cars here yet (and when they did, in '72, they were a joke, ultramicro two-cylinder 600's). The only players that counted were Toyota and Datsun. Quality was considered iffy at best, and the designs appealed to the, let's say "alternative" buyer. They sold ultra-conservative ultra-low performance econo-boxes competing with Vegas and Pintos. The 2000 wasn't available in any numbers, and was actually rather expensive - I recall in the $5000 range. The Z was an *amazing* departure for a Japanese (or any) company - good looking, seemingly well built, incredibly affordable. Really fun too, something the Japanese manufacturers had never before provided. It gave better value and overall performance than the Triumph TR-6 or Spitfire, or the MGB, the Saab Sonnet, or the Porsche 914. They were also unique looking - you could say it was "inspired" by the XK-E, or it had a "bloodline" to the Cobra, but that was all, it wasn't a copy of anything (unlike the Miata, which is a straighforward ripoff of the Lotus Elan, arguably the first "retro" design sold to the public). The kicker was that it was one of the most reliable cars in America at the time, which got a lot of people looking closer at the Japanese cars in general. Then with the big Gas Crunch of '73, the Japanese industry really took off, partially as a result of the respect garnered from the hardcore sports-car freaks by the 'Z. (History lesson ends).

Something else about the Z's - people like 'em. They're *affectionate* about them. At lunch, I go over to this little park where I have a cup of coffee and decompress. At least once a week somebody will come ambling over with a big smile and say "That's a Datsun Z, right? Gosh, those are pretty little cars!" or something to that affect. They don't know it has a big motor or a fancy suspension, they just like the style. I often hear "My uncle (aunt/cousin/brother/nephew/neighbor) had one when I was a kid, and I just loved it!" People in their 20's and 30's, mostly, but quite a few younger guys too.

Yeah, I do. And I've gone back and deleted the existing cookies, re-logged in, the whole schmearola. It was working fine for a few months, then suddenly took a dump. I guess it's just me, i haven't seen any other complaints. I'll check my system over more thoroughly and see if I come up with anything. There may be a bad preferences file or something along that line.

I'm using a fairly complicated setup. I have a Hayden adjustable controller mounted in the hot corner of the radiator. It isn't perfect, though: at idle it's great, with all that hot coolant warming up all that trapped air, but it reacts to airflow by kicking on at higher coolant temperatures. This makes me paranoid. Also, it was fairly inexpensive, and that makes me paranoid, too. My donor car was a Firebird with air conditioning, and since I'm hoping to someday have A/C, I used the original relay from the bird, which is triggered both by the in-head sensor and by an A/C request (it grounds for both). I just wired the Hayden in parallel with the other grounds. The only problem left is that the in-head sensor is a 210 unit (the standard one for just about all GM products, so far as I can tell) and I'm hoping to find a 190 or 200 unit somewhere. This weekend I wired in a little LCD to indicate when the fan is on, though I haven't driven it yet (new cam being installed). I don't really think a plain old car toggle switch is a good way to run the fan - it pulls a *lot* of power, so should have a helluva big switch, and it's just human nature that someday you won't notice that little orange needle swinging farther and farther to the right... On a related note, with all this futzing around with motors and fans and relays and switches, maybe JTR was right when they suggested a pulley-driven fan with appropriate shroud. It would move more air than any electric, and simultaneously take care of the underhood temperatures problem by simple displacement...