Drax240z

$800 sounds like a lot to me! You can definately do the diff without a lift. I just did one on my 260 and it took about 8 hours start to finish, fom parking the car to the first test drive. (in this case removing an R180 and installing an R200) No lift necessary. Throw in a few more hours for a tranny swap while your on the go.... Its definately doable in a weekend with a couple of guys. (I could have saved a couple of hours with another set of hands I am sure) Buy a haynes and dive in!

I was out at a driver training course last saturday, and a buddy of mine was running his Nissan Multi out there. He'd had some pretty severe problems with his rear right wheel locking up on panic stops. This was an off and on problem for a month or more. Finally just before the track day we decided it should be fixed... And found out that the brake components were simply dirty and crammed with dust. A thorough hosing off, and the brakes worked as well as new. Not to say this will be a solution for many braking problems, but sometimes its valuable to think simple first. (and cheaper!)

Heh, written by the FSAE head judge.

Oh yeah James, I don't doubt you, but can you please tell me where I can find woven CF mat for 2x the cost of woven e-glass mat? We're looking in the area of $50 yd^2 up here for CF mat. Woven e-glass being about $12 yd^2. Also to consider, polyester vs. epoxy resin... There's quite a difference in cost there as well.

You know, with all the work involved in creating a mold for production, as well as the initial cost (a mint stock dash), I think $650 is more than reasonable. I'm sure the price will drop as the setup costs get payed for. Its just not worth it to make a high quality mold for something like this, unless you are planning on making a high number of products. (ie: if someone decided to do a CF dash on their own, it'd cost them a fortune in money, but especially time) Glad to see people like Ron doing stuff like this!

A little more information... Gilles Villeneuve was a truly talented driver. This particular battle was for 2nd place in the race by the way. From what I've read the Ferrari he was driving at the time was the slower car, and his tires were far beyond the 'normal' point of maximum wear. That first pass of his outbreaking Arnoux into the turn blows me away. More info and better videos can be found at: http://www.farzadsf1gallery.com/dijon79.html "The duel with Gilles is something I'll never forget," said Arnoux afterward. "You can only race like that, you know, with someone you trust completely, and you don't meet many like him. He beat me, yes and in France, but it didn't worry me … I knew I'd been beaten by the best driver in the world."

http://www.gz-car.com/vod/junzai_1979_F1.wmv 1979 French Grand Prix, the late Gilles Villeneuve in his Ferrari and Rene Arnoux in his Renault.

Yeah, its tooo bad we don't even have enough parking lot to redline it in first gear. We are having seriously difficult times trying to find a place to drive it these days. (even our local autcrosses have been cancelled!) It sure kicks butt in the autocrosses though.

Just thought some of you might enjoy this... I just finished making a video for our FSAE team, you might want to take a look at it... Divx 5.0.2 required. (and a fast connection, its nearly 19megs) Formula UVIC Promo Video

There is something I'd like to point out just for general awareness. You guys can put in your harnesses however you wish. [soapbox] But consider that the harness is first a safety device, and secondly something that aids in driving by keeping your body in place. To keep your body in place, nearly any attachment points will suffice. However, as far as a safety device goes, you want to consider carefully where you mount all points of your harness. Ideally, you want your harness attachments to be on the most rigid part of the car, in most race cars this is by far the roll cage. There is a big reason for this. If you roll your car, get T-boned, etc what happens to your car? Deformation to be sure. You can imagine the force that is required to deform a steel car significantly. Now imagine what that force would do to your body, because by attaching your harness to a highly deformable section of your car, those forces will be transferred along the harness to your body. In other words, if you attach to your strut towers in the rear, and get T-boned on the rear axle, your strut tower might move a few inches. If its moving a few inches backwards, you're in for some serious trouble. Another point, don't spread the shoulder harness mounts too far apart, or you'll squeeze between them in a crash. I would say 4-6" is the only range allowed between the shoulder belts at the anchor point. And while I'm on the subject, be aware of the angle the harness shoulder mount makes when it leaves your shoulder. You want it to be between about 45 degrees downward angle, and horizontal. If its going up from your shoulder, its not doing its job. If its at more than a 45 degree angle, you could have serious compression of your spine occuring in an accident. I believe that most of these issues are raised in manufacturers instructions. But you'd be surprised how often in even in open-wheel, open-cockpit car design, the harness is an add-on instead of something integrated well into the design. The 5th point in a harness is a terribly useful one, but can be neglected depending how your harness fits, your seat angle, body shape, etc. Its purpose is to keep the buckle from riding up once installed. It isn't a restraint for your body at all. Personally I'd never buy a 4-point harness, but to each his own. (its sortof like money, once you have a 6 or 5 point, its hard to go back to something less!) [soapbox] Anyway, not to say you guys did something wrong, I just don't want to see people make uninformed decisions when we're talking about safety equipment. (and also I've got a bit of a unique perspective on this these days)

For mine I used the existing stock insert, and fixed the autometer gauges into that stock insert. It fit perfectly, without any gap, and looks pro. Also it makes the gauge really easy to aling properly.

I've got that exact unit in my Z car. Its not too bad to fit. My advise is to cut off the drivers side inlet, and have it rewelded so that it sticks straight out the side, instead of out the back of the intercooler. Also check out Scottie GNZ's site to see how he mounted his (larger) NPR intercooler. I'm pretty sure this small NPR will support up to ~275-300rwhp, but no proof of that yet.

I'm pretty sure the flattop piston/N42 combo has been done sucessfully more than a few times. Seems to me that was the hot ticket a couple years ago for NA performance using cheap stock parts. CR should be around 9.8:1 with this setup, though the N42 chamber design isn't ideal as previously mentioned. Norm on Zcar would be the one to ask I suppose, he's played with most of those block and head combinations. I'm toying with putting a flattop piston block under my N42 head, so please post with any info gained!

Tom, I'm curious... how did your Z get so heavy?

2 semesters away from a Bachelors in mechanical engineering if all goes well...

Generally you want to put new pads in in pairs, as in if you do drivers front, you should do passanger front at the same time. Different pad compounds and wear will make them grip differently.

Hey Pete, when are you going to do a complete photoshoot for us?

Way to go Pete! I hope it was worth the trouble and wait.

$300 canadian for the works for me....

Brad you can get the stack of dimes look with a MIG, no doubt. However, those welds are definately TIG, just from colour and shape. I'm not trying to say you can't have nice MIG welds, I did our whole racecar frame with MIG welds and they can turn out great with the proper settings. (which are a huge factor!) As for left to right or right to left, its really personal preferance. As long as you know what the results are of each, then you can adjust to make a good quality weld. Once you start TIGing though, its really hard to go left to right if you are right handed and still use filler rod!

Well my rear brakes are toast, no shoes left! I know a lot of you guys have dealt with this same problem, I'm trying to figure out my options (low cost options) at this point. Buying new shoes is one... Anyone have anything else to offer up for options? Spending more than a couple hundred is right out at this point, leaving most rear disk swaps out of the picture. Terry, I was curious to hear a bit more about what you did with your rear... oh yeah, I have access to a machine shop and welders, etc. Let me know what you guys think!

Oh well I guess we'll stick to the old fashioned way... you know, computational fluid dynamics. Just a shot in the dark...

Sorry shock, there is no way to get a MIG weld to look like that. Close maybe, but that is distinctly TIG. Hopefully by the time I get to welding our race car frame this year, my welds will be close to that! Getting there! TIG is so addictive too, once you start getting decent welds, you just never want to stop welding with it.

Anyone know if any of these programs will handle odd modifications and odd engines? It would be idea if we could simulate what a 600cc motorcycle engine does at 11,000rpm while breathing through a 20mm restrictor...

Sounds like a dynamic vibration absorber. Basically its a mass mounted on a spring (everything is a spring technically, even a thick piece of steel) that will move the natural frequency of the system away from the range where resonance occurs normally. For instance, you may have a diff with a natural frequency that coincides with 2500rpm cruising, adding this dynamic vibration absorber can move the natural frequency of the system so that it is at 750rpm, or 7500rpm for instance. As a result you don't feel or hear the resonance occuring as often as you would if it were a 2500rpm natural frequency... Sorry, I have a vibrations midterm in a few hours.