Chino 240Z

Once the bearing cage is worn, it becomes very thin and brittle. While trying to remove it, the cage just crumbled into pieces except the outer race ring. The outer race is to thin to grab and to tight to pull. Now it becomes this super tight, hard steel liner inside the crank end. When the cage and bearings all fall to pieces the is nothing for grease or TP and pressure to push against out of the hole. No lip edge or ring to pry against. To thin and tight for heat & ice to work. But a tiny dremel bit did score the race enough to snap in half and pull out. The race metal is a very hard metal and ate up several bits while trying to score or cut it. I was very surprized with the hardness of it. I've seen these nice looking roller bearings before but never installed them only the solid type. Not sure how long they last, since this car is a track only car and is out 7 or 8 weekends a year for the past 4 years. I'm sure they install simple and often remove easily too. Maybe I just had bad luck that night but was wishing the po had gone with the solid type. I just remember the crazy words and foreign tongue I spoke as I spent hours working on such a simple item under the car.

Had a b!tch of a time getting a worn roller bearing out last year. When time to change and the bearings come out in your hand and then the outer bearing race sticks you often need to dremel cut the race out. Not as easy to change as the bushing type. Too tight for bearing pullers & hooks, grease & pressure method fails. It was stuck good! After the one episode with the previous owner installed pilot bearing... never again.

We made this one from "Home To-pot" parts. Still keeping our butts planted to the asphalt in high speed turns for the last 4-1/2 years now. It will flex a little and probably could have been placed at a softer angle. I'm a little hesitant to try something new after this set up has never failed us at 125mph in T9 at Willow or in the Roval T1-T2 at Cal. speedway. Very similar to Speedgato's version.

Toyo's RA1s 225x50x14 on 14x7 Panasports, lowered and did not rub, fenders not rolled. Since then we have gone to 225x50x15 on 15x7 Panasports. BTW... I now have a set of 5ea rims & tires up for any offers. I did like the profile of the 14x7's with 50's on the car better than the 15x7's on 50's. Had to size up with the installation of the Arizona Wilwoods & rotor setup. sorry bout the large pic, tried to re-size too.

yea, I guess I remember seeing a slight gap or a thread left before tighenting down onto the actual gland nut shoulder. Previous owner who cut my tubes had one a little longer than the other 3. That was the side I had to take apart 2 times to get the right fit with no rattles or banging.

In the case of my 240 tubes the threads inside were not very deep and left too much gland thread outside the tube and too much gap under the strut insert. I cut the gland nut threads enough so that the shoulder of the gland nut would tighten to spec and seat flush on the top of the tube. Now I don't know how deep the treads are in the top of a 280 tube? It may thread all the way to the gland nut shoulder, then you just need to section the tube test fitting everything before welding the tube back up. Careful not to make too short.

I second this nut for the 240Z: ThyssenKrupp Bilstein invoice shows: Part Number Description- B4-B30-U232B1 (Ringnut, M48x1.5 OST). I needed to cut down this new nut in length in order to seat down properly for my 240. Tool for this Ring Nut 30MM is # E4-MS08/7. Was worth every penny of $4.40. (02/02/07 Bilstein price)

Yes I did the revalve 300/100, but this not on a street ride. The car is gutted or lightened, fiberglass hood & rear hatch, plexi-glass rear window, no heater core, no fan, no radio, no interior, door windows removed, race prepped car. As we learned and improved our driving on track we expected more out the car too. Just like everyone else we wanted to be faster and have better lap times too. But before we spent more money on HP upgrades in the motor we thought we should get the existing 170rwhp this 2.4L was giving us out and onto the asphalt. I don't think you need to revalve or will have problems with shocks failing with lower spring rates like 240/200. Different story if you plan to get up over 300 in the future. I'm not shock and spring experienced but I'd agree with jmortensen's comments too. Cutlass, I do have 10" springs on front and I can get it pretty low, un-drivable. We had a lot of body lean, and nose drop or diving as we kept braking deeper into the braking zone at high speeds. Other cars were able to hit harder & deeper into the turn without upsetting their car as much as ours did. It wasn't crazy, but just enough to see why some other car had pulled a little bit on us in a turn, after turn, after turn no matter how hard I tried. We started with Tokico shocks up front & the adjustable in the rear with 275F / 225R springs. After removing the Tokicos I had found that they were basically trashed. I believe the extreme rebound rate of a 250 or 275 and 300 lbs. spring damages the internal valving in the shock. Not so much on the compression stroke of the shock but the forces of the spring rebounding seems to be too much for the shock to take and shortens it's life. As for the coil overs good or bad? I would put it on a priority list of changes if one was looking for performance. It gave us the ability to play with ride height and weight. Makes changing springs and shocks easier to deal with too. Helped get the airdam lower to the ground too. After swapping to this setup I dropped 2 seconds without trying. I think each driver finds what he or she is comfortable in their car. Such as, I like the feel of a welded rear out of a high speed turn. To me the rear feels more predictable time after time , lap after lap, as long as I keep the same line. And with this new spring and shock combination I was able to push that comfort zone harder and faster in these type of turns. My wife adapted to the new set up well, but doesn't trust it as much as I do (Knock on wood). I'm on a budget too, I can't afford several spring & shock assortments and other mechanics to do the work for me. I need to hopefully get it right the first time though. With lots of homework and luck I was hoping that money spent would show results. We use to run 3 or 4 events after each change or upgrade. The real results of this new suspension came into play when we added the Arizona Z 12.2†Directional Vented Rotors & Wilwood 4 Piston Calipers. Dropped couple more seconds and still looking for the limit of this thing. It's going to be a combination of changes, trail & error, and driver seat time to find what improves lap times. I don't want to be the slow car on the track but understand the cars limit is directly proportional to the dollar spent. I'm just following you guys here and having fun doing it too. Thanks for your experience. ok time to shut up, sorry

FWIW.... Last year I did this conversion on our 240 track car, removing the Tokico shocks. With the info collected from this thread, everything went as planned. Strut tubes had already been shortened. Bilstein Shocks # F4-P30-0032-MO (revalved 300/100), # B30-629 gland nuts milled down a few threads to fit flush with top of strut tubes. After playing with lower spring rates this setup (right or wrong?) 325lbs Front / 275lbs Rear is currently working for me. Tire temps and wear showed much improvement. You may need to add small spacer in the bottom of strut tube for best fit during assembly. Purchasing the gland nut wrench that fits this nut makes install and removal smooth. The shock is listed on receipt as: P30-0032 VW 74-89 Front Sport. The revalve was an additional $75 performed at Bilstein. I also used Shox.com I can also see that each install adjustments may be a bit different as there are many coil over hardware packages on the market. craig

it's an neat freak thing...