Drax240z

Niiiiice. James what is with the inlet shape? Doesn't look too optimal for flow, is it specifically made that way to work in conjunction with another piece? Shouldn't you drive the Z into the 10's before you start another project? Hehe.

Heh, it's funny beating up expensive cars with a piece of junk. My buddy here and his $800 510 kills most porches, vettes (including a couple Z06's), etc. on the autocross track. It's pretty funny overhearing them after he pulls out a run 2 seconds faster than their best. The difference being he can drive and has no fear, while they can't drive and worry about ruining their $$,$$$ sports cars.

Between 15-20 hours of sanding & filing by hand. Then when I realized that I had that much work again ahead of me to polish, I decided to powdercoat mine.

There is no doubt in my mind, while both the others are sexy cars, the Z is the nicest looking in that bunch.

Recently I've noticed a lot of misplaced posts in this forum. The title on the forum index perhaps doesn't do the best job in reflecting the type of content that should be posted in this particular forum, so I will elaborate. (and hopefully save me some time from having to move posts every day) Acceptable topics for this forum: - Anything cutting edge that doesn't fit in the other forums. For example: - Rotary Valves - Aerodynamic discussions - Intake design - Carbon fiber monocoques - Electronically controlled suspension, differentials, brakes, etc. - Yaw control, traction control, launch control I think that gives people a pretty good idea. NOT Acceptable: (and things I've been moving a lot of lately) - Anything related specifically to turbos/superchargers - Anything related specifically to other 6 cylinder swaps - Anything related specifically to ignition and fuel injection

Well certainly we all have our preferences, but I felt the discussion wasn't complete without at least presenting both sides of the arguement.

Well it is an opinion and you are entitiled to it, but I have to disagree completely! Peak power is quite irrelevant! Unless you are using it at as marketing tool, or for bragging rights anyway. It has relatively little effect on how fast a car is, how nice it is to drive or how it responds. By raising CR from 7.4:1 to 8-8.5:1, throttle response will improve, spoolup will be faster, off boost ecomony (ie: 90% of your driving) will be better, and you will most likely have more area under your torque curve. What the result will be is a much more drivable, efficient, and possibly faster car. Certainly faster if your gears are not set up in such a way to take advantage of a peaky engine. I agree that the light platform minimises the drawbacks from a 7.4:1 CR. However, on anything but a drag strip the extra CR would make the car respond much better. If a lower CR is better for power, how come we don't hear about racers dropping their CR to 7:1 in order to make more power under boost? (even drag racers in this case) Obviously the law of diminishing returns applies here. The turbo industry has pretty much settled on the fact that 8-8.5:1 is optimal for most turbo engines.

Another option for rear disk brakes on the wagon is an early 80's 200sx disk bracket, and 280zx rotors and calipers. A bit of mucking with the e-brake is all the fabrication that is needed. We've done 2 of these on wagons now. However, I can't recommend enough to go with the 81-83 style of zx rear caliper over the 79-80 style one.

I just looked at it in the grocery store as well. Too bad the car had mechanical issues (broken oil pan from coming down too hard from the wheelie), it had the potential to be in the top 5. It ran one run in the 9's before breaking though. Not bad for a street car....

Heh, same rims as on my car. Get a little more tire under there and it will fill out the wheel well nicely. I also found that datsun 6-spoke center caps (chrome) really helped out the look of my car with those wheels as opposed to leaving them black as well. Great looking colour!

Made this a sticky and moved it to the turbo forum.

That looks so mean! Are those wheels available in 5 bolt?

I agree with everything Jon just said in that last post... except for the semi trailing arm swapping in the rear. I've had them side to side on the floor and it looks do-able, but I don't think it's just going to bolt in and be done. Some of the angles and positions are different, and minor fabrication will be involved for the spring/shock change from one to the other. (reinforcing the unibody where the new springs are at least) Use 280zx brakes on the front as they are, vastly superior to the Z setup. In the rear you can make the ZX rears work if you use the ZX semi-trailing arms, if not you'll need a bracket fabricated for the disk brake swap. (and then use all ZX hardware)

It's similar in the automotive business... Our shop rate is $50/hr (cheap around here) and we had some guy complain that he was a biologist and wasn't making $50/hr, what makes us so special? Well... as you can guess the overhead is significant. Our shop rate might be $50/hr, but as an owner at this point I think I figured I am making about $2.50/hr so far this year. The joys of a new business!

A local guy just did 101mph in a super 7... in reverse. http://www.super7cars.com Incidently I also beat him in the last autoX we had here. Beating an ex-canam driver who is in a super 7 isn't something to sneeze about. Oh, did I mention he DNF'd 4 times? Actually the Z we just put the 3.1L in did in fact beat him in the time department by a 59.XXX to 61.XXX margin, and the 240z/3.1 was on course the whole time.

Just pressurize from your turbo outlet onwards. Don't worry about cylinders or valves, just keep your throttle plate closed and that will take care of it. I pressurize from the airfilter to the throttle plate usually and just check for leaks between those points. Air will only escape the system through vacuum leaks and any cylinders in valve overlapping position, which isn't much on a turbo cam at all.

ZX's don't even have a tach that goes to 7800rpm... I did some G-tech runs 2 nights ago, and the car felt good at 120mph. It sure had a lot of 'go' left when I let off there! Ran a 13.83 on the G-tech with 9psi boost. (I blew up my walbro pump and am back to the stocker, hence the limited boost) The brakes felt much scarier at 120mph than driving the car straight did though.

Too funny Anthony, I was at a club BBQ last night and Greg Macauley and I were talking about Shasta, and he was telling us a story about he and Ross Corrigan driving Ross's V8 280zx around Thunderhill. The long and the short of it was that they kept hearing this noise as they went down the straight, looked in the mirrors saw nothing, looked at each other in confusion, and then you blew by them on the straight in your wagon. Greg was saying after the session he demanded you to pop the hood because you came out of no where... Small world sometimes! As far as sectioning goes, there are shorter strut inserts available as well that you can use with the ZX struts to gain even more front travel in a 510. A great setup for the track.

A couple reasons to swap to 280zx trainling arms are the ability to use disk brakes as a bolt on, and the ability to use a coilover style shock in the rear. 510 trailing arm spring perches commonly rust out around here too. The 240z spring & perches with a zx strut works quite well, and if you run 710 isolators and control arms you can pick up another 1*-1.5* of negative camber up front. (the 710 isolaters are offset, and the control arms are slightly longer than 240z/510)

From an earlier post of Dans...

Actually it is a lot more expensive than that... throw in new hardware that we've needed to keep up with the demand here and the bill has skyrocketed. I'm sure someone like Dan will chirp in with the exact numbers.

What size are they Paul? I can't believe you are ditching such a nice wheel to go with panasports! Pana's are nice and all, but becoming a dime a dozen on Z's...

For instance, with lack of tuning I've learned that 1/4" of rear toe out is a bad thing.

I'm using the 440cc/min supra turbo ones in my car now, and they are high impedance.

It isn't like he's some journalist that has never been behind the wheel of a powerful car before.... Name: Tiff Needell Nationality: Great Britain Date of birth: October 29, 1951 - Havant, Hampshire Needell's racing career took off after he won a Formula Ford car through a competition in Britain's Autosport magazine. Having been interested in trying to advance his career but not having the money, Needell leapt at the opportunity and won the Formula Ford title in 1975. The remainder of the 1970s saw Needell as a front runner in the British Formula 3 series and then in the Aurora British Formula One championship. In 1979 he was unable to graduate to the F1 World Championship due to the lack of the correct licence, but he was back in 1980, driving two Grand Prix for Ensign, qualifying for one, the Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder. Since then, Needell's racing career has mainly consisted of racing tin-tops (hard-topped cars), with varying levels of success in sports cars, historic racing and touring cars. He achieved particular notoriety after an accident with Nigel Mansell at the 1993 TOCA shoot out race at Donington Park. However, Needell is best known in his native country as a noted television presenter and television and print motoring journalist, in particular in association with the BBC TV series Top Gear. Very cool show though. I wish we'd get Top Gear over here.