m1ghtymaxXx

Well my XXR's were stolen while the car was in winter storage. Thinking of replacing them with these in 15x9, 0 offset, and 225/50R15's. The car is currently on stock strut housings, though I have a set of megan coilovers to be addapted after autocross season. Does anyone know if these will clear the Toyota 4 pots, or any other 4 pistons calipers? I've got a pair of 5mm spacers laying around, which it seems are necessary for the fronts.

I had XXR 002's in 16x8, 0 offset with 205/45/16's (slightly stretched). Car is on stock strut housings and clearance wasn't an issues. Unfortunately the wheels were stolen off the car while in winter storage, along with all my tools. I'm now looking for replacements, but there isn't much in terms of affordable, oldschool looking 16x8" wheels besides XXR (not a fan of dual bolt pattern). Drag has some nice looking knockoffs in the right size, but they seem to be heavy even for cheap wheels, and the internet tells me they're quite poor quality (though the same is said about Rota/XXR etc.and I've never had any issues). Apologies about thread jacking, but does anyone have any suggestions for affordable 16x8's with a stepped lip and someone oldschool look? Alternatively I'm thinking 15x9 Rota Shakotans as replacement. Has anyone had luck with 15x9's under stock (rolled) fenders?

Figured I'd chime in, my 77 mastercylinder wouldn't adjust, but it just seemed the rounded end was seized onto the thread shaft. I struggled for a while with vice grips on the threads but never got it to budge. My measurements showed it was just barely within spec, and I haven't had any issues with it on street. I should poing out I'm also using the 1" mc with all stock brakes, and I've found the feel to be just fine, though I the car came with a rotten MC, so I have no idea what the brakes were supposed to feel like. The heavy pedal just matches the heaving steering to me.

So I installed the ST rear bar this weekend along with an OBX LSD diff and Technoversions Ron Tyler diff mount. I was quite impressed with the ST kit, I hadn't realized it includes rear control arm braces (for lack of a better word) with the mounting ears for the rear mount sway bar. Besides having to trim the braces down about a 1/4" inch to fit, install was a snap. Only issue is the sway bar rubs against the parking brake cable. I'm thinking I'll try and find some sort of cable bracket to secure parking brake cable to the control beneath the sway bar, or wrap something around the sway bar and cable where they contact to avoid abraision. Anyways I would highly reccomend this to any 280/late 260 owners looking to upgrade their rear sway bar. The rear bar makes a pretty big difference in exhaust clearance, and allows for removal of the bar without dropping the exchaust. For me this a huge benefit since the previous owner of the car had hit a rock on the highway that among other things, snapped off on of the the left sway bar mount. The mangled remains of it were given to me in a box, and I managed to straighten in out and weld it back in, but I couldn't get the torch up into beam to weld in the top of the mount, so I think it had some flex to it. Now it's as solid as can be. Car should be on the road within 3 weeks, between the bars and the LSD, it should be a lot more fun now!

I was wondering this today when I saw this BRE themed Targa Newfoundland entry: It should look good in our Evo's rear view mirror

What about a chrome vinyl wrap?

Update: Diff has a arrived. I pulled it appart and found that 1 bolt that was about 1/2" shorter than the rest, and was stripped to hell. it also damaged the thread in the case which I attempted to retap, however the case material seems very hard (good thing I suppose) and it just stripped my tap. I thought my tap set was decent, but I supposed I'll bring it to a machine shop to have them do it. Perhaps they can check runout on the ring gear flange. It seemed Honda guys were have issues in that department, but I haven't heard of that here. Also I may be crazy, but the alignment dowel in the case seemed to have magically disapeared. I swore there was one there, though I can't see it being a huge deal if it's missing.

I've got my OBX LSD and R Bryant rebuild kit, I'm starting on the intall this weekend. I'll be using the 3.90 case and gears out my previous S130 with the stub axles currently in my 77. Of course the topic of setting up the OBX has been beaten to death, but in all the threads there seems to be no mention of setting up the rest of the diff. Reading through the differential chapter of the FSM is enough to make your head spin (at least if you're like me and have little to no hands on experience building diffs), but everyone installing the OBX ,or any other LSD carrier, barely even mention shimming the the rear gear, let alone setting up all the other tolerances in a diff. Am I not giving OBX enough credit, or wouldnt a shotty machined chinese carrier throw off pretty much everything? I'm just wondering what all I'm getting myself into, and whether or not I should be trying to line up a good drivetrain guy. At the moment I'm thinking I'll throw the diff together as it came a part and check the back lash and wipe pattern and take it from there, but what have other's experiences been like with this install?

So my OBX diff should arrive this week, and my rebuild kit is here already. I took a look at the FSM to see what I'm in for as far as putting it back together again and my head began to spin. I hear mention on hybridz of shimming the ring gear and checking backlash upon reassembly but that's it. What about shimming the pinion gear, side bearings for preload, and checking the pattern on the teeth? I would imagine all this can be thrown off when installing a cheap Chinese carrier, but mention of these procedures is scarce. If I can get my hands on a dial indicator, I figured I'd put it back together the way it came apart and check the back lash tooth wipe patterns. If they don't look right I supposed i could stuff my pockets with cash and head down to a driveline shop, but ideally I'd like to do it myself. Am I over-thinking this, or are most people neglecting (to mention?) these crucial steps? I have zero experience with diffs, and minimal experience with transmissions, but I'd at least like to try it myself before shelling the cash for someone else to do it.

I've got a 77 280z with the Wilwood 1" MC and bone stock brakes front and rear. When I bought the car the MC was trashed, and since I had future plans of doing the Toyota front brake swap I figured I'd futureproof with the Willwood master cylinder. I've street driven and autocrossed with this setup with no issue, but I never drove the car with the proper master cylinder, so I don't know how it compares. The way I see, the steering is already heavy as hell, now the brakes just match in feel Keep in mind the 280's have bigger boosters than the earlier cars too, I have no problems looking up the wheels.

Don't see these on their website. Any more info/pricing?

Some good tips! Since this will require locating the mounting brackets and drilling holes, was going to attach the links on both sides and see where that puts the bar on rear the diff mount, then center, level and drill. I appreciate the advice from John and would love to support Betamotorsports, but in this instance I was putting together an order of exhaust parts from Summit (great prices) and found they have ST bars, which are no additional shipping charge. Given my location on the far side of a large island in the North Atlantic, shipping is a killer, especially since all the Z car parts vendors seem to be concentrated in the US south-west.

Excellent, so I'm thinking I'll grab the 240Z front and rear combo (unless anyone thinks the larger 1 1/8" bar will beneficial). If it doesn't come with the mounts than I can always order one of these: http://www.energysuspension.com/universal-products/sway-bar-bushings.html For the 240Z rear bar swap, do the end links use the same pickup points on the control arms or do new holes have to be drilled?

I'd like to do this setup. So the sway bar mounts on the diff mount are included in the ST kit? I noticed the ST front sway bars for the 240Z is 1" as opposed to the 1 1/8" for the 280Z. I assume this is due to added weight of the later car, so would the 1 1/8" front bar and 240Z rear bar be better combo than using the 1" front bar?

Well this season I'll be racing in E-stock, so no camber plates or LSD. I have new springs, Tokico blues and new bushings, and will be running r-comps. I only made it to one event last year and it was damp out, so of course with little traction, it's hard to gauge how severe the body roll was. After autocross I plan adapting the the S13 coilvers that I had in my S130 along with camber plates, installing the OBX LSD and much more including an L28 swap. The car is a 77 with the front mounted sway bar. When I bought it the left sway bar mount had been snapped off by a rogue rock on the road, which also left nice dents in the front x member and floor pan. I welded it back in, but couldn't get at the part of the mount tucked up into the bulkhead, so it's probably got some flex to it now. I can probably do a better job of the repair now that the car is in the shop on 24" stands, as opposed to in my driveway in the dark the night before the race I did a quick search on converting to a rear sway bar, but nothing came up. It doesn't seem like there would be anything to it though. Can I just order a 240Z rear bar and some generic mounts to weld to the rear diff mount? Seems like it would clean things up nicely at the rear of the car .

Thanks! Care to elaborate though? At what point would a stiffer front bar begin to increase understeer? Or will it?

So I'm about to make large orders from both Summit Racing and MSA, and I figured it's a great time to save on shipping sway bars. Summit carries Suspension Techniques, which as mentioned are a thicker in the front. I'll be running stock class at autocross this season, but have a set of s13 coilovers I plan on installing afterwards. I had the coilovers on my 83 previously and with the included springs I saw no need for thicker sway bars. Of course the newer stock springs could benefit much more from the thicker sway bars, but would the thicker front induce more understeer than the smaller MSA? Because of the potentially increased understeer, and being better suited to stiffer coilovers, (and $120 cost savings) I'm thinking MSA may be the way to go. Is my logic flawed?

Strange, several times I've had one of the "pivot" bolts break locking the alternator to the bracket, but I've never had trouble unbolting the bracket from block with the alternator attached. Granted a set of swivel head ratcheting wrenches may be the key.

Can anyone confirm these parts all work together. And is there a spec somewhere for what machine work it takes to fit the fwd maxima brackets? Or if someone makes a bracket to fit the late ZX calipers?

I realize this is an old thread, but I just started a thread trying to see if the 83 280zx calipers I have on hand could be any use for a rear disk conversion (http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/111660-s30-rear-disk-conversion-using-82-83-calipers-possible/) I still haven't found an answer, but did you end up sticking with the 83 ZX calipers? If so I'm very interested to know what brackets and rotors makes this work!

While I understand where you're coming from, the S13/Maxima/Early S130 conversion has been done countless times with good results, so as far as bias goes, the 83 calipers can't be far off the 79-81. I realize any of those rear disk options (and stock drums too I'd imagine) have a hard time keeping up with big front brakes bias-wise, but I'm looking to run the stock 2 pistons fronts. I have the 83 ZX front calipers on hand, but I can't see them being much benefit for a season of autocross.

I replaced my 83 280zx 2+2 with a 77 280Z after the 83 was overcome by rusted and relegated to parts car status. One of the first additions to the 77 will be a rear disk conversion (mainly for ease of maintenance and the fact that the shoes are shot. Although the bulk of disk conversions seem to use early S130, maxima or 240SX calipers, I've heard mention of using the later S130's now and then, but no mention of what other parts were used. Is it possible to reincarnate the brakes from my beloved deceased 83 or shall I put them up for sale? As some background, I'm currently running the Wilwood 1" mc on the stock brakes with future plans of doing the SW12 front conversion (rear's will be done first though). If the 83 calipers are no good I may look at the Silvermine Mustang conversion, though I'm think a prop valve will be a requirement. Thanks!

Nice work! What year 280zx calipers are you using?

I bought my 83 280zx days after my 18th birthday/grad. It had belonged to my high school gym teacher and I drooled over it in the school parking lot every day. In grade 11 he put up for sale for 4500, but I didn't have the cash. Fast forward just over a year and I had saved a lot of pennies from a minumum wage job at Canadian Tire and was shopping for a new sports car for grad. After not having any luck find my dream supercharged AW11 MR2, and expanded my horizons too mkIII Supras. Then while perusing the the classifieds my gym teacher's 280zx surfaced at a nearby sketchy car dealer for 1500 more than it sold for the previous year. At this point it was too late have it for grad, but I did spend a good part of my grad chatting with my teacher about the history of the cars. Some of rust my gym teacher had mentioned no longer existed, so I figured they'd done a fair amount of work to justify increased price. At this point I was too in love with the car to thoroughly inspect the body work, and was the proud new owner of my first classic Z car. Over the years I found some sketchy body repairs, but it wasn't until this passed summer (I'm now 24) that I had started tearing it apart and found the true state of the car and what can be hidden beneath undercoat. After well over 100 hours into repair I realized that it was too far gone. The biggest shame was that all the cosmetic sheet metal was in decend shape except for the passenger side quarter panels/doglegs. Pretty much all the metal underneat along the perimter of the car needed replacement, and I just wasn't willing to tackle that job, so I decided to cut my losses and start saving for an S30. It didn't take long before I found a very nice, all original 77 280z locally (California car originally) sitting in a garage hear in Newfoundland. The price was right (for a Z in Canada) so I scooped it up after a few minutes inspecting where I now knew where to look. She had sat for a while and took a few evenings work to have it inspection-ready, but I'm thrilled to have clean new canvas to begin with this time around. Plans for it are to run it in stock class at autocross this season for a chance to win free entry into the Targa Newfoundland rally, and then go to town with an L28ET swap (from an 83 turbo parts car I bought a year and a half after my first Z purchase) and suspension mods. Here's the 83 just months before I uncovered how rotten it actually was: IMG_1823 by m1ghtymaxXx, on Flickr and the new to me 77: Waterfront 01 Watermark by m1ghtymaxXx, on Flickr

My apologies if this has been covered somewhere, but in my searches I could not find a clear answer. I've read numerous times that 240Z racks are lighter (aluminum) and quicker ratio than 280Z units. I was thinking of getting short steering arms, but realized shedding a couple pounds and quickening the ratio with a 240Z might prove more beneficial. In searching for rack interchangeable I found this ancient thread: http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/topic/37106-240z-steering-rack-interchangeable-with-280z-steering-rack/ which states that racks are interchangeable between all S30 years, but the 78 has the quickest ratio (I have a 77). Can anyone confirm whether the 240Z rack is in fact quicker, lighter, and fully interchangeable, perhaps backed up with some numbers (weights and specific ratios). While I'm at, I welcome you to weigh in on my theory; I only got a chance to autocross once with my S30 before winter, but I found the manual steering to only be a significant detriment to performance when turning hand over hand, so I figure by having closer ratio steering it will increase steering effort, but I will be able to perform tighter radius turns while keeping both hands planted on the wheel.