Sparky

The 280Z 5-speed is going to be tricky to find. I would search for a five speed from a 280ZX...they are plentiful and cheap. One thing to consider though is the possibility of upgrading to a 240SX transmission. as the 280ZX trans' become harder to find the 240SX transmission should be the next wave of readily available transmissions. A quick search should give you some info on the 240SX swap if you lean that way. check out this link for a rough idea of what certain combos of transmissions and rear ends will yield performance wise: http://www.geocities.com/z_design_studio/

for what its worth, I once shipped a set of carbs and some misc interior junk to Australia by ship and it took 4+ months for it to finally show up at his door. He was beginning to think I ripped him off and I was worried that the parts were in never never land. international shipping by boat sucks, only do it if you dont mind losing the part. if its something that you can only get from overseas, pay for air shipping and insurance, no matter how much it hurts. that way things like this don't happen. I've had more than a few things lost in transit...its an unpleasant situation for both parties because you don't know who to believe, or what really happened. Once it leaves the sellers hands, its all up the air, your now at the mercy of 100 middle man that might not care, or are just generally less than trustworthy.

Alan, Could you and would you mind elaborating on the unique features of the PZR shell?

I cannot express how awesome this is to hear! You can count on my throwing some cash your way...its not much, but this info will prove to be invaluable for the entire Z car community and I'm glad to have a chance to help in anyway I can. Cannot wait to see the results along with some pictures.

As soon as I get the final prototype back and bolted to the car I will get you exact figures.

That Wilwood hat sandwiches between the wheel and the hub face, changing the front wheel offset. A member here has installed a set (front and rear I believe) with some success, but with fabrication remaining. I can not comment on the exact means of installation, but it is an option to consider if you have a good connection or can find them used. you will need to fab up a bracket and play with the setup though....

Right, with adapters, guess I should have clarified again it would be nice if they had a universal lens standard that would assure that different manufactures lenses would bolt up to different bodies. I'm not sure on the Autofocus lenses either but it would be nice. I would imagine though that most camera manufactures would have some kind of proprietary communication port or signal interpretation that would make it difficult to cross adapt. again, I could be wrong. its obvious that I'm an amateur, although at one point in time photography was my focus until my A1 went tits-up. Its been in the past three years that I've picked it up again when I got my first decent digital camera. I recently got second place in a local photography competition, along with tons of compliments on my other photos. Its nice to hear and has given me a push to purchase a DSLR and fix my A1.....we'll see, my less than a year old Canon was recently stolen from a job site, so I need to buy something before I leave.

YES! one of my all time favorites, I will own a road version of that car someday! You are correct!, The majority of the vintage frames are brazed. This makes it easier to repair in case of an accident, that way you don't have to grind or cut the old tubes out, just heat them up and melt them out. of course there are exceptions to this, I seem to remember a few vintage P cars that had full aluminium tube frames TIG'd together. Check out this link to go to a small photo album of Vintage race cars from Texas world speedway. this is a CVAR club race: http://onclickpix.com/?p=va&ai=16 one of my favs, BMW 2002s this is a real Alpina car, check out the flares! anywho, plenty more in there, Not really Vintage photos, but whatever

Yeah sorry, I misread the earlier post as lenses from P&S digitals to DSLR cameras. So yeah, thats a consideration of mine as well because I used to shoot everything on an older Canon A1 until it broke. So now I have five lenses that I would like to be able to use with the DSLR that I buy. It would be nice if the different brands of lenses could be used on different manufactures bodies...bummer about that.

The lenses wont be interchangable but the filters can be, if you get a P&S that can accept and adapter...not all of them do.

Well, I consider the folks here at hybridz.org to be my extended family. The advice given here often times is not only technical, but also personal. Topics here can range from female troubles, law troubles, or just general life questions. Because of this and the time I've spent here (five years! WOW) I feel more than comfortable opening up with any issues I may be having, or giving advice to others. One of the things that family members and friends do for each other is help each other out, be it monetary, physically(labor) or emotionally. Something that may have brought this topic up is the link in my signature to my paypal account. While I am indeed accepting donations, I certainly don't expect it, it would just be nice. The demands of my program leave me unable to work a part time job without sacrificing the quality of my work and it's the high quality of my work that has led me to my current industry connections and my acceptance into the study abroad program. This leaves me to live a rather frugal lifestyle off of my student loans and whatever I can take in selling used car parts on ebay, all the while trying to save up for my four to five months in Europe. So, I thought why not, it couldnt hurt and even if I just recieved five dollars, every little bit helps. If in this process people here or elsewhere think or assume that I'm just lazy, or looking for handouts, well so be it. People are entitled to their opinion and I accept that. It is better to try every thing I can to make this trip happen with as little stress as possible, than to not. I've applied for every scholarship I can get my hands on but have not heard anything back yet....it makes me a little worried that I may have to take out yet another loan to cover some of my extra costs and leave me with enough of a monetary buffer to tap into should any unforeseeable circumstances arise when I'm there. I guess if thats what I have to do to make it happen than thats it, sign me up. So, yeah...I get emails from people when I post stuff on craigslist asking if they can have it for free if it doesnt sell. or try to haggle a 15$ item down to 5$. lazy jerks!!! well, hope everyone out there had a great thanksgiving. It was nice to get a day off.

I'm in the market for a DSLR but have had good luck in the past with my Canon A620. large movable screen, manual control settings, AA batteries, AND the ability to add on a filter adapter or special lenses. examples: I love it becuase its light, its fast, it has the most available accesories of any point n shoot, it runs on AA batteries so I dont have to lug around a bunch of chargers and garbage, and it has the easiest and most intuitive menu I've ever used. A++ I also highly recomend Steves-digicams.com for research, thats how I've researched my last three cameras, ALL of the them Canon powershots.

Excellent advice in this thread!

Vehicle Certification Agency. The U.K. equivalent of the D.O.T. certification.....Kinda.

are you wanting the hubs for any particular reason? do you just want to run wilwood calipers and bigger rotors? If so, have you seen this post: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=113936

Is it wrong to want all of them?

As far as I know nothing has changed on that

Your not making this wait any easier on me, OH the anticipation!!! Hmmm, My friends are going to think I'm nuts going to salvage yards in Italy...might have to ship myself a cheap tool kit before I leave.. Excellent suggestion! I would have never thought of that one. I was planning on renting one while I was in Barcelona but never thought about getting one for the rally, why didn't I put two and two together?! I don't know if I will be that daring at my first event, but I will certainly have a hard time keeping myself from doing something like that. I looked on the map but couldn't find Sembach..I did however find Simbach am Inn just East of Munich, is that the same place? If so then I will make sure I stop by because that kart track sounds awesome and since its a stop along my route It would be silly of me not to stop. Ancona: I'm actually staying 140KMs by train from there so I will put that on the list too. We only have classes four days a week, the other three are travel days the school gives us so we can travel around without having to worry about time so I will try to make it a weekend solo trip The most difficult thing about this trip isn't deciding what to see, It's deciding what not to see I really feel that I could spend years there and not even get close to seeing half of what Europe has to offer, another reason to go to grad school there. Well, thanks for all the suggestions, keep 'em coming!

But thats where all the action and squishing occurs. Reminds me a quote from a famous group B driver a long time ago (paraphrased of course) When asked wether he would chose to hit a rock wall on one side of the course of a group of people on the other side should he lose it on a turn he said "...Well I would chose people, because people are squishy." ..awesome! I would love to but cannot seem to find ticket or pass info to make that financial call....It is the tentative plan though. As far as I can tell it seems as though you can get pretty close to the action in the service areas. very cool. I will be in Eastern Tuscany in Castiglion Fiorentino until mid may and then its off to Barcelona again to check out graduate schools and then Prague stopping along the way in Switzerland, Germany, and the BENELUX countries. (I hope) I know my schedule until mid May and then I'm winging it the rest of the time so we shall see. Thanks for the info everyone, keep it coming! p.s. Im also open to any suggestions about places to go or things to do...I'm open to anything and everything...just wish I had time to see it all.

It's good, but its not that impressive. Thats pretty good, but I would expect a little more from that combo now THAT is a bold statement that I know for a fact is just plain wrong. My friend overseas runs a LHD us spec 280Z with a full interior AND AC into the mid 12s at 1000M above sea level...and he does this using a slightly worked stock FI intake manifold. again, a laughable statement, I normally stay out of these pseudo engineer Zcar.com flame fests but this raised my eyebrow for a variety of reasons. You are an excellent craftsmen, and you have some good experience, but you also have the backing of some nice tools and equipment that many people would be envious of. People buy products and services from other people because not everybody has the time or access to specialized equipment needed to fabricate certain parts, on top of that some people also realize that just because they may have the tools, doesn't mean that have the knowledge and training to do something properly. The reason our wonderful economy works the way it does is because these people on the "bottom of the totem pole" rely on others to provide what they need or want. (now that alone doesn't guarantee that the product they are getting would work any better than what they could have built themselves.) again, good job in the craftsmanship department, but just because you designed and built something it doesn't make it the be all end all go fast part. Thousands of man hours in form of schooling and testing goes into some of these parts that us "lowers" purchase for our cars. As an example I seem to recall a certain engine bit that was "designed" by a supposedly knowledgeable Z car "expert." This expert claimed this and that but couldn't prove a thing, in the end this part ended up being a complete waste of time and money, bought by consumers with wallets bigger than their eyes and search buttons. Testing testing and more testing along with hard data to back things up are what's need, not hearsay and conjecture.

when I move to Italy this January I'm looking at doing a few extra curricular motorsports activities while I'm there. One of those is a WRC event. I'm looking at attending the one in Italy, or Spain (ultimately I would love to see the Swedish rally but thats a bit of a stretch.) but cannot decide...not like I really need to as both would be great. I was going to go to the Mexico event last year so I could get a taste of it but missed it due to some major projects coming up... So what I'm wondering is, If anyone out there has been to an event could you give me a few tips and tricks to maximize my enjoyment potential? The other event is more than likely going to be a F1 event, I was going to go to San Marino but seeing as how their not sure if it will be run next year (last I heard) I might need to come up with an alternative event. I caught the F1 race in Barcelona last May and would go again but I would like to see a different track. I cannot wait to see another race as I must say it was an incredible experience, there are no words I could use to describe just how awesome those cars sound as they fly by you...you feel it more than hear it! two months till lift off!

are there any sites like that for cars in Italy? Not that I would buy a car when I'm over there, but.....well....you never know I guess

yokohama avs100 225/50/15

Very cool, it will be nice to see just what kind of numbers the pinks car could have produced. is it an early 260? Why not use the 240Z for the turbo car to save a bit of weight. chances are the TurboV8 will not be short on power. Are you going to make both cars dual purpose cars? meaning drag racing/track cars or just straight drag? I can see how the turbo V8 would probably be best suited for an all out drag car, leaving the L6turbo car as a street/strip machine. anywho, sounds fun, wish I could donate some time/fab skills to the projects but seeing as how I'm in Texas thats probably not possible.