tir33d

So I had a driver controlled braking issue. I didn’t stop in time. mechanically fine, my fibreglass is amazingly strong but needs repair. The car sat at about 110mm off the ground, without rubbing guards. I have now dropped it another 25mm and guards were engaging tyres. Rather than repeat some bodywork issues I decided to create a little more space. Category rules are must have front bumber but can extend 100mm forward for undertray and 100mm wider on guards. Gonna try my luck making a full front clip. Very time consuming, but oddly satisfying. Fellow competitors pay upwards of $10k for a front clip (mold and one panel set). Mine will be stronger with lots of Kevlar and prob $2k with replacement panels at half that price. Aiming for less than 25kg for whole front (guards, bonnet and front spoiler).

2.18 Bathurst

Car is still around. Still drysumped LS2, jenvey throttles with quaife 6 speed sequential and independent 9 inch. 18 x 11 wheels and 300 mm slicks all round, big AP brakes. Cool car, but the process over 9 years has been expensive. 3 x R200s, 3 t56 gearbox’s, 3 sets of coil overs, 2 sets of brakes (plus numerous rotors and pads -last set of maintenance rotors and pads was $3400. I motor blown due to oil pressure, one due to a lifter, one cooked, but still ran. Driveline is not bullet proof, but works hard so requires a little maintenance. Video is what I class as a diagnostic video. It also happens to show a Z doing a 2.18 lap around Bathurst. My quaife had dropped one tooth on 3rd gear.

Yes all 3rd gear too.

Not my first rodeo on driveshafts either.

My 3.25 ratio is rarely used, I am actually gonna re-lash the gears this time as I forget tooeach time I use it. I have been waiting for some new vents from the USA for 3 months now. They should arrive soon I hope. bathurst is a hard track to build confidence at, zero room for error for over half of the track. pretty proud of not lifting for the kink too!

Lost a tooth on each of the 3rd gears. new one on the way. power out on start was isolator flicking off on change to 3rd gear. Had me stumped for a sec.

So, purely for diagnostic purposes, I have a video. Ummm just trying to work out a noise.......

Wish I could put up a in car lap. Powers that be reckon they own my footage from my camera.

IMG_4126.mov

I just raced at Bathurst in Australia with my highly modified 280zx. Mixed weekend with a 5 sec PB for qualifying. Racing was a bit too serious for my liking over the hill in race 1. Race 2 managed to snap another drive shaft. Race 3 from rear of grid was awesome. New PB 3 seconds better again. 2m18.7 man I’m happy! video is TV coverage of practice IMG_4126.mov

Trying to get heat out through bonnet rather than under the car. roof ended up saving 19kg. bonnet is currently fibreglass at 12.5kg - carbon is under 5kg and stiff FullSizeRender.mov

I use 5kg springs in rear. Very soft and I have quite a bit of droop. I have been watching a heap of the videos ole mate did with his carbon 240z. Now having a go learning carbon. If all goes to plan I might make a fuel cell to sit right behind rear towers and mount my wing off the cross between the towers. Then I have a bucket load of space under there and we may go to a double wishbone style set up, or at least some sort of locator behind diff. can’t wait to cut all that metal out. Carbon Skin is 2kg

So, I guess it worked , I am able to get a bit of camber and a bit of toe equal on both sides. Easier to control on throttle oversteer now. Here is how I spent my weekend

So I have been unfortunate enough to be able to break almost all components in the rear. my rear end now consists of a independent nine inch, billet axle and stubs with Porsche race cv’s. All hanging in a modified 280zx subframe. Yes I still break stuff. this day I found the left was separating itself out near the hub. We replated the whole lot, on the left, but replaced the right with a arm from a 280z 1979, (told they were identical - and look identical, bar the brake mount) strengthened as well. When reassembly we had to remanufacture a dog one for the right rear brake. Now although these rear arms arm similar. I am having terrible issues with camber and toe. The right side is positive camber, even with adjustable eccentric bushes I cannot go negative. Car is crazy fast, really pushing the limits on standard suspension points, want to try a R33 style rear but it just takes up to much space. We are gonna try removing the mounts and add 3 hein joints. I could scare you with some of the measurements of my set up

Always evolving. Stay tuned for some rear end work. I have found I have slight differences in my rear trailing arms. Even with the adjustable eccentric bushes I am unable to get any neg camber or toe on my right rear. Rather than reinvent the wheel, or add a new subframe we are gonna work on the mounts. The 9 inch rear cost me way to much to start from scratch.....

https://youtu.be/vj48VGalIDg I might just leave this here

Further updates... now independent 9 inch and Quaife sequential. and I went racing. In Australia we call this sport sedans. You can race anything, as long as 6 litre capacity and engine in mid to front. Most guys in this video are tube chassis running SB2 chev.

If someone technically smarter than me can add that vid it would be appreciated

Having major issues re-integrating on this site. Cannot seem to get my computer to access and finish uploading from photobucket. Anyway, if you have a look on youtube for user name LS1280zx and search for hillclimb crash, you will see the demise of my old car. New car started as a spare parts car, bought for $300 for its r200 diff and power steering rack. As it turned out, this car had some serious rust (which has all been cut out and repaired) but not in crucial areas. Since you are never meant to test your rollcage - and I did, I decided to overengineer a lot of the car. Both front and rear strut towers were strengthen with 3mm plate and the rollcage now extends to towers. Extra bars, extra triangles, got rid of tartga tops and welded up. Taught myself to fibreglass, made my own moulds, created my own car. So whole front end including doors are now fibreglass, bonnet and doors have extra layer of Kevlar to prevent shatter in case of accident. Overall weight is now 1200kg wet. Still a bit of a fat pig. Car runs 295/30R18 tyres all round, still has LS1, although with some trick 5.3 litre heads with 6.0 litre valves installed. About 550hp at motor. Car took forever to rebuild, now slowly getting back into racing it. Really need some setup work now.

I cant load any links