Drax240z

Mmmmmm... shoulder bolts. 8) Do you have any more pics of your frame to share? It looks pretty darn sweet. I take it you have an internal roll cage as well that ties into this one? I've got to ask, what's with the paint? Did you mask the bars off and paint them prior to welding but leave the ends bare just to get the hard to reach areas? I see the TC rod mount and that does clarify things. I thought form your description you were using the stock TC bracket, a clevis bolted to that, then a rod end in the clevis with a shoulder bolt. I see now that your clevis is the bracket and welded to the frame. A very robust setup indeed. I also see the TC rod mounting area is well triangulated. Very interested in seeing more pics of this setup, it's pretty cool.

Damn Jamie after what you say about the Lincoln Power Mig I'm not sure I want to TIG aluminum ever again! Hmmmmmmmm..... What do those go for anyway?

Do you mean the one in red in this picture? As you can see I left it there.

They never catch me again.

But what bolt design do you use that passes through the clevis and rod end? A shoulder bolt of some type? My point is that all too often someone will put a threaded section through a double shear connection like this and even though it is in double shear, the threads will still be experiencing (reduced) bending loads. I'm sure most people think I'm nuts by now. I can't really argue that.

Have you guys have any trouble finding the T5 transmission output yokes? (or whole driveshafts) The seem to be like hen's teeth around here... From what I have found it's a Nissan specific T5 yoke...

I bought some stuff from him too. Took a long time to ship, (10 days until it left his hands) and he charged me excessive shipping. I bought two items, he charged me $6.25 each to ship, put them in the same box, and sent the whole box for $1.10. Yeah it's only a few bucks, and I don't mind being charged $25 shipping for something that costs $20 to ship, but this transaction with reddat rubbed me the wrong way.

I have a set of modern motorsports coilovers on my car and I love em. I this it's a good investment, though you'll have to figure out some solution for the rear springs. Ross has been through all this with his 280zx and he's probably a good one to ask about the specifics. I wouldn't buy the pro-kit personally... I base that only on others reviews of it, but it simply isn't the solution for someone that wants a good handling setup regardless of harshness, noise, etc. Kudo's for addressing the suspension and brakes first. As for wheels, if you do a 5 lug conversion you'll have wheels galore available to you, and very reasonable prices.

Yeah I understand that you can make use of rod ends that will handle the stresses easily... from a pure theoretical racing point of view though (uh-oh) it's an inefficient use of weight. When you are building lightweight formula cars an oversized rod end, in 20-30 instances throughout the car is actually a significant gain in mass. In a 2000lbs+ Z car with 2-4 oversized rod ends, the car isn't going to notice at all. My point? I have no point other than I'd dissappoint all of my teachers if I did such a thing, after what it took to bash it into my head. Another topic, slightly related is the use of threaded bolts in double shear situations... (think of a U shaped bracket with a rod end in the middle, captured by a bolt through all 3 items, side 1 of the U, rod end, side 2 of the U) Again it's a case of just going bigger to be stronger I guess.

Yeah almost all the designs out there put some kind of threaded section in bending... Man has it ever been beaten into my head by Paul VanValkenberg, Carroll Smith, Mark Ortiz, Pat Clark, etc. that I will instantly die if I ever do something like that. While that is a bit of an extreme approach it does have some basis in reality.

Yes you can weld aluminized steel as normal with a MIG... just wire brush/grind off the aluminizing where you are welding, and don't breathe the vapours. Also, it's impressive what a coat of high temp paint will do towards prolonging an exhaust system... It's well worth it on any mild steel exhaust system that you want to last IMHO.

Pssst, hey Glenn... we can use paypal.

Quit complaining and do your own laundry then. The shirts, hats and stickers were all cool and I can't recommend buying some and supporting the site enough! (because Tim's sends all profits to Dan to pay for the site maintenance)

It depends on what springs you ordered... they commonly come in 8", 10" and 12" lengths. If you have an 8" spring it should go on fine without needing to be compressed, but I would imagine that a 10 or 12 will need a bit of compression to get it on. Try it in the car and use that as your guide!

Wow Phantom, way to go! You are getting some pretty serious coverage with that car!

I'm interested to hear your results as well Speeder. All indications were that these seals would work. I based that on how they measured up in my hand rather than 'only' your word, as I've recieved some bad advice before on the internet. In this case it's more that I can't imagine what else it could be causing this smoke than any real feeling that the part is not working correctly.

A word of warning, though it's a bit indecisive. I've used those valve seals that speeder lists on a car with a fresh rebuild, and it seems to still have some top end oil issues, as it's smoking on startup still. This was after a complete head rework including new guides, so I suspect the problem is the valve seals at this point. It's fairly speculative, but a word of warning.

The stewart-warner gauges look well priced and seem to be decent quality IMHO... take a look anyway. http://www.sw-performance.com

Yeah my comments only apply to a L series 4 cylinder swap. Certainly there are other 4 cylindesr that are much more worthwhile swapping into an early Z.

John I was thinking specifically about the 1bbl carb on the inline 6 when I was making my above post... that was almost certainly done because it was cheap. You are absolutely right that there were 6 cylinders out there with carbs that weren't done just to be inexpensive.

You can't seriously think that just because lots of people are doing it, that it is good... right? The only reason this was done was because it was the cheapest way to get it running.

The one with the higher deck height is the L20B. It can be (and has) bored out to take 240sx pistons, and make a pretty stout 2.3L from it. I'm pretty unconvinced that even this setup would be a step in the right direction over the L6 as far as power to weight ratio goes. Even a stout 2.3L probably makes no more than power than a L2.8 does stock, and the weight difference isn't as much as you would expect either. (true you have 2/3 of the mass of the head, block, etc. but you still have the same mass in tranny, accessories, etc) I'd expect the difference in weight to be in the area of 100lbs, and the difference in potential power being a greater overall percentage. (you might be saving 5% in the weight of the car, but you are losing ~25% in displacement, and likely power as well) Not to say it can't be done or done well, I just think it's likely a performance decreasing modification in the end. Feel free to prove me wrong though.

Damn that's cool.

Well my apologies if it's true, maybe someone had switched rod ends with some cheaper ones on the arm's I saw... though I wouldn't recommend that at all! Out of curiosity Dave, how long have you had this product and how many cars are using it? (Ballpark)

I'm sorry to have caused such a problem by asking for this to be posted. I had sport Z for the first 4 issues... I simply don't have an income to be able to afford some of these things anymore, yet I was interested in reading what Pete had to say about Hybrids in general. To that point, I really like what "the moron" Pete had to say. Funny to picture Pete's car while reading Jeff's article talking about "hackers" and "defacing a classic work of art".