m1ghtymaxXx

I have the setup you describe on my 77. The fronts require spacers, I started with 5mm but clearance was too close for comfort so I stepped up to 5/16"/8mm. This requires longer studs, I used 240SX. The rears fit with around 10mm to spare. Note that this setup will poked beyond the fenders a fair bit, though tire selection forces you to run a tad bit of stretch (widest available 225). I have never had any rubbing with Eibach springs and Suspension Techniques sway bars, and and that includes many spirited runs on very bumpy roads. Pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/87466467@N04/8794806654/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/87466467@N04/10524677024/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/87466467@N04/9292558362/

Good to know. Perhaps I'll break out the grinder this winter and buy some time before it happens again. Out of curiosity, how does Quaife deal with the issue? Are the sun gears sprung, or do they use some sort of spacer?

Figured I'd toss in my 2 cents after installing the OBX this past spring. It arrived at my door with many of the typical quality control issues; gears installed backwards, mismatched hardware, and one of the bolts was stripped, it was actually significantly shorter than the rest, and seemed to have stretched from inadequate thread engagement. Of course ordered Richard Bryant's kit (very helpful guy and more than willing to answer your questions). between myself and the driveline shop, we broke about half a dozen taps trying to chase the damaged threads in the carrier. The machinist then suggested I dremel grooves in the included hardware and use them as a large set of disposable taps. This actually work quite well, but one this is for sure, the carrier material is VERY hard in these parts. I then adjusted the washer stack as per Bryant's instructions, and knocked down any sharp edges and other areas that looked prone to chipping with a dremel and grind stone. I then chucked all the parts in the dishwasher, installed new carrier bearings ($12/ea direct from SKF) and assembled the carrier with plenty of gear oil. I took it to the driveline shop to be shimmed and check the gear wipe pattern, plus torgue the carrier and ring gear bolts since I didn't have a vice at home. Cost at the machine shop was $150, but it's not step skip, in regards to Meph's post, if all carriers and bearings were identical in size, they probably wouldn't come with shims. Anways once I had the diff installed, I did run into the issue of the stub axle studs rubbing on the diff housing on decel. It wasn't terribly bad, and actually self-clearanced itself after a few day's driving. I'll have to take a close look now to see if the material came off the studs or the case, if it's the studs then it's easy enough to replace, and I can grind down the case slightly. I'm not sure how other people's grinding issues compare, but unless is significantly worse than what I experienced, it seems like it could be solved easily enough taking a grinding wheel to the case where the studs would otherwise hit. In conclusion, despite some minor issues, I would certainly recommend the OBX if you don't mind trading a few hours of your time for $1000 savings over a Quaife. I've now put about 5000km on the diff with zero issue, and the first oil change at 1000km didn't show any trace of metal shavings or paste. Performance wise I have no complaints. I have nothing to compare it to, but you certainly don't notice it's there until you break traction, then driving becomes faaaar more predictable than it ever was with open gears. I can't wait to be able to throw more power at it and make full use of it.

Springs would most definitely be upgraded. I'm well aware the Megan springs are junk, and at a nominal 450lb/in front and 380 rear, they're much to stiff anyways. I haven't fully researched spring rates, but I figured I'd go with something in the neighbourhood of 350F, 300R, though something a tad softer might be ideal. Interesting that Swift outperforms everything else by such a margin, though that thread is 5 years old, so perhaps other manufacturers have since caught up. I figured I might go with Eibach, just because I had planned on sourcing my gear from Ground Control who deals in Eibach.

Yeah I haven't heard anything terrible about Feal, however most threads that mention them also holed BC Racing and Stance coilovers in high regard. The most useful tidbit of info I've found is that the Megan dampers are linear, and can be tuned to perform alright at handling weight transfer on smooth tracks, however smooth pavement doesn't exist where I live. It seems digressive valving is required for control over bumps, makes sense since you would want the the springs to soak up the bumps rather than the chassis. The car is primarily a street and autocross machine. I can't justify pouring a ton of money into the suspension, but the Feal revalve is $150/corner, where as Konis would run about $200/corner, not a huge difference as long as they'll work out of the box without requiring a revalve. With all this said, I should point out that I competed in the Targa Newfoundland Rally this year in an AE86 on Megans (we had spent the year building an Evo III, but lost the engine on prologue day and scrambled to prep the 86 overnight). Anyways despite the suspension we were able to finish in 3rd place (we were in 2nd until the very last stage when we gave up our position by 15 seconds as our focus was finishing the last day intact.

double post

As mentioned, I already have the Megans, but after running them for a season in my ZX I have no interest in using them in their current state, but there's nothing wrong with the threaded bodies. Feal suspesion offers a revalve service for them for $150/corner, a decent savings over buying new dampers, and I'd happily go that route if I could find some good reviews on their work, but there internet is scarce with information so I'm hesitant to take their word for it. Megan's website claims that Bilstein shim stacks are compatible with their dampers, which if true makes a good case for Feal being able to make significant improvements, but again, I'd like to hear reviews from a 3rd party. Anyways, I have the tools and knowledge sections the struts, and I've very pleased with Ground Control and their products and service, in fact they sponsored an Evo III Targa Newfoundland Rally car a friend and I built, and I ended up on a first name basis with their development guy as we scrambled to put together a suspension package in the month before the week-long rally. In fact I had planned on sourcing they Konis, springs, and revalve if necessary from them. It's just that using the Megan bodies allows me to adjust ride height independent of preload, perhaps not something I would continually play with, but it just makes initial setup as flexible as possible. It also saves me the cost of the threaded sleeves, and saves me the time and effort of sectioning the strut tubes. The rest of the shopping list is the same ( dampers and the bits to make them fit the bodies, custom gland nuts and spacers, camber plates, springs). I'll have left over camber plates, S130 Spindles welded to threaded tubes, S13 rear lower mounts (same as S130), as well camber plates and top mounts. I plan on selling that as a kit which will allow Megan, or and brand of coilover with the same thread (BC & Stance IIRC) bold up to an S130, hopefully I can partially fund this project with that. This project isn't 100% ready to go ahead, I should have the dampers out of the Megans this weekend to measure up (only a snap ring in the way, just haven't had any time this week), and if I can't find a damper to fit, than I'll look at GC sleeves, or Feal suspension, and if I can't get any positive reviews on Feal suspension, then that just leaves the tried and true GC sleeves.

I may be interested. Feel free to message me the details.

This saves me having to ask. I just started to tearing into a set of Megan S13 coilovers that I had previously adapted to my now-deceased 83 ZX. I'd like to re-purpose them to fit my "new" 77. I looked at sectioning struts and using ground control sleeves, and although it's well within my ability, reusing the Megan housings would allow my to keep the ride height adjustment independent of preload. Probably not a huge advantage, but is also saves me buying sleeves, and it would save a ton of work. I had heard some board members say that the S13 coilovers "won't go low enough", but I'm not sure how much is enough. The 280Z is currently on Eibach springs (20mm lower?) and I'd like to drop it another inch and a half. Once I can confirm these housings will meet my goals, the next job is to try and source some good dampers (Bilstein or Koni) and build a set of sleeper Taiwanese coilovers with properly valved quality dampers, proper springs, weld-in camber plates, and of course I need to find some threaded sleeves and spindles to replace the ZX stuff.

I was pushing 2 pedals at once, something musta broke. Also since I neglected to get a pumpkin this year (live on an island, we always run out), this served as the household jack-o-lantern. Edit: gollum, that's amazing

Wow, what happened to the hybridz I know and love? i'd love to see how this turns out! Do you have a pic of the bumper you plan on starting with?

^deals! I paid $400 on ebay plus shipping.

It looks like the "two holes" are different diameters, so that must help center them, otherwise I would have thought the slots would need to fit rather snug to the studs to keep the wheels centered.

Damn, I was looking forward to seeing them fitted. The modern take on oldschool basket weave wheels but with no lip could be a fresh and interesting look.

Nicely done! Not that I have any use for it at the moment, but if you're ever bored and you have access to the scanner, it would be wicked to have scale drawings of as many components as possible. Any chance of hosting the DWG's as well?

Are these LED bulbs meant for a halogen reflector type housing, or HID projector type housing?

Good info! I've already acquired the 240 signals for my 77, and was going to get an 240Z air dam to go with them this winter. I had planned on just getting an MSA type 1 or similar, so that's all I need aside from adapting/extending the wiring? Chances are I'll leave both lights for now, but one set not powered. I was thinking of retrofitting fog lights where the 280 signals were in the grill.

Since there's a plug and play option available, I would personally go that route. Do you have any further plans for the motor? KA's take well to boost, it seems like you'd be ahead in time, effort, performance and futureproofing with the MS setup.

Is their a reason you're set on 17's? Brake clearance? Tire selection? Perhaps going with a 15" would open up some 9" wide options. As mentioned Shakotans are available in 15x9 for dirty cheap and they look sharp, and weigh 15 lbs. I can tell you from experience fender flares aren't required unless you're running wide tires at a low ride height. As for the above post, I wouldn't get too hung up on the strength argument. I've hit some nasty road cuts with mine that I was POSITVE would have at put a dent in the lip, but nothing. You probably won't find many potholes on a race track, and it's not like the high dollar forged wheels used by the pros don't sacrifice strength for weight savings. Another not, a friend has ran the Targa Newfoundland rally (a week long endurance rally on some of the roughes 'paved' roads anywhere) twice on dirty cheap Motegi's twice, and the previous owner ran several Targas on the same set of wheels. That is thousands of race miles in conditions far worse than any track, and absolutely no sign of damage to the wheels. I don't know how Motegi and Rota compare, but I wouldn't suspect they're too far off each other strength/quality wise. For a chump car I don't see any issue with running cheap wheels, not bottom of the barrel, but cheap. If you eventually break one, at least a replacement is less that $150 away, and chances are the same incident that broke the cheap wheel would have broken an expensive one too.

My guess is the key is to go overboard with the number of coats, or you will severely hate your life come time to remove it. I'm basing this on the fact that my self and countless friends have never had plastidip come off easily. ever. A friend sprayed his race car with 8 gallons, the removal took as much time as the sanding when he got a proper paint job a year later. Another friend had similar experience when did a trial run of orange plastidip on his wheels, a friend who owns a shop offered to paint them properly in Signal Orange, but had no choice but to charge labour for the hours of elbow grease required to remove it. We did the center section of the wing on our Evo III rally car, but some motor oil spilled on it and desolved a section. Then we began trying remove and respray it, but gave up when we found how difficult it was to remove (had 4 coats). Not to sh*t on the product (it has it's place, like blacking out the badges on your leased vehicle ), but before going ahead with it, consider if you're just "dipping" something because you can, or because you legitimately want it to look like it was done in bed liner. If you're going for the matte look, a course matte paint will require only slightly more prep (masking aside), and will survive many conditions that Plastidip won't, like exposure to oils, solvents, pressure washers, bird poop (I've heard this dissolves Plastidip). Maybe I'm just bitter because the product has lead to the most tasteless wave in car "modifications", people painting random parts in random colours just because they can without consequence. I would say it's a great way of temporarily protecting parts like while and chin spoilers while changing up the colour. Also I will also confess the idea of doing my whole car in dessert sand crossed my mind as temporary interim paint job, but at $20 a can here in Canada, I'll save my pennies and do it right the first time. Hope I did't offend anyone

I recently heard about this, what a shame. Just recently ordered a couple quarts from autopartsway.ca. Do tracks require a DOT rating for brake fluid? I would imagine it would sell just fine without a DOT rating, unless it's a requirement to actually race. Perhaps they should just sell it as something other than brake fluid...paint stripper?

Old topic I know, but i built a 3" exhaust for a bone stock-engined 280Z (In prep for an L28ET when I get around to installing it, but I couldn't be any more pleased with the deep sound of the big pipes). I used the 2-1 merge collector as a base, cut the flange off and pinch welds off, then slide a piece of 3" pipe that I ovalized in a vice over as far as it would go, tweaked the profile to sit tightly over the merge collector (ended up in a bit of a figure-8 shape), then traced the end of the pipe on the collector, cut on the line, then butt welded the 2 pieces together and voila, a 3" down pipe.

Simple post production involving desaturating and adding contrast to the background. Also it was taken with a Nikon D5000, not that. Wheels are most certainly enlarged in Photoshop, but tech junk aside, that is a beauty of an S130. I'd love to see an un-doctored photo of it. Given the amount of editing, it wouldn't surprise me if it's not even orange in real life, but it sure looks good.

I have the same setup and would give the same advice. For what it's worth I've never had this setup rub either.