Drax240z

A chin splitter added on to a commonly available airdam will give you significant downforce. It could be easiliy continued back to the front crossmember as well. BEWARE: if you do this without adding something significant in the rear as well, you'll be very tail happy at high speed. Not a good scenario.

Hmm, I'm not using a damper of any type... I have a bit of a 'hiccup' every once in a while, under light throttle cruising. Anyone done any comparisons before/after?

John answered for me pretty much. I use the 8000rpm number as a ballpark, the waves are of course present at all rpm, but as you rev higher the gains and losses associated with wave propigation become VERY significant. Actually, the Jaguar D-Type had some interesting tests done on it way back when, and at high RPM on that engine (3.8 inline 6?) they found that volumetric efficiency could vary by as much as 30% at high rpm just by changing the intake runner length. (80% to 110% VE!) Of course, this was 40 or 50 years ago, things have gone much more in depth since then. A quick overview: intake air comes rushing in at ~the speed of the piston, valve closes, air 'bounces' off the back of the valve and this negative (because of direction only) wave propigates back into the intake. It bounces around in there, and then comes back down the runner again at some point. If you time the intake to be open when the positive wave propigates back down to the valve back, you get extra air forced in by the wave, if you are a split second too late, the wave has bounced back (negative), and instead it pulls air away from the valve, lowering VE. What you say about the stroke is true, and I'm sure the biggest reasons we don't see engines like this in production cars are torque, and fuel economy. 850hp and 216ft-lbs of torque don't make for a great soccer-mom SUV. As soon as you get into the upper echelon of RPM's, assuming you have a valve train that can support it, you really need to put a bunch of time into intake and cam design. (and you don't need pneumatic valves like F1 to spin 16,000rpm... I've seen a valve spring'd V8 turn 16,000 (see picture), and inline 4's in the 15,000 area using valve springs as well) Depending on the geometry of your intake, you can see very real gains at any RPM you tune it for, a-la the D-type. If you are particularly fancy about it, you can see these gains across the entire RPM range, or most of it. (infinately variable intake runner length) However, as easy as it is to get right, if you get it wrong you'll see losses of the same magnitude. It's not really rocket science, and I am sure the OEM's know all about it and have the money to design for it. Had to thorw in pics of this, its just too cool not to show. The rear part is a 6 speed transaxle... you can get an idea of how small this engine is. (554cc)

I wouldn't want to put the barbed fuel rail back on my engine... it was a struggle to put it on there the first time. (its UUGGGLLY)

Looks good James... man there is a lot of room for flow improvement there. Maybe consider machining some new valve guides out of a more thermally resistant material if you are going to shorten them up significantly. Is the outlined area cast into the head a steel insert around the valve guide? "metal" is a pretty broad term. Any plans to go up in valve size slightly? Seems to be lots of meat for it.

Hey lockjaw, missed your post back there for a while. Is the Nissan T3 output flange different than a 'standard' T3 output flange? If you have a cad model (actually just a .jpg of the dimentioned view) I'd love to get it. I guess I am going to have to get my own machined. I figured there would be some place that did a run of a few hundred and was selling them off a bit inexpensively, but I guess that isn't the case?

Has anyone found a T3 output flange that they can buy seperately, instead of cuttong the cast iron stock one off the stock downpipe? I'd be interested in getting a SS one, but can't find one...

Heh, I've often thought that if the west coast of the US/Canada seperated and made our own country, we'd rule. BC/Alberta has probably 70% of canada's raw materials/resources. Water, wood, coal, iron, copper, gold, oil, wheat... we've got it all covered... we just don't do anything with it. Mix in the washington/oregon/california industry and damn there would be a lot of potential there. Who's up for it?

Good choice, find someone who knows their job before handing them the keys to your car. The internet is amusing, since all the info is out there and easy to find, you'd think the people that should know it would use it. However, what happens more now is the consumer goes into a store/shop with more knowledge than the people in the industry in many cases!

Well I'm not a purist, my Z's have been pretty highly modified, past the point of no return, but if I had a low VIN# Z, I'd certainly try to keep it stock. I'm all for cutting and chopping the ones that are easy to find, or have previous damage, but I'd still hate to see all the origional Z's off the road, cause they were a pretty sweet car stock too. I'd get it, and keep it 'legal'. 648 isn't that low a number... we have 48 and 129? in my club here... I'd suspect that a lot of the low VIN #'s are still around.

Ditto to what sleeperZ said... Unless somehow you have some restriction in your exhaust, it shouldn't hurt performance, high end or low end. Maybe the extra power/spoolup has caused something to come loose, break, etc. and it just happened at the same time as adding the new exhaust...?

Welcome to the industrial world. If someone quotes you 3 weeks, be happy if you have it in 6. I've been down this road many times, and I can't quite figure out why people don't be more realistic with their estimates, unless its just to "hook" the customer to get the work started, and by then they think they can't go anywhere else.... Good luck.

You know, I really like Nikkor lenses, and Nikon SLR's, but I'm not impressed with their low-end consumer digital cameras at all. I imagine the D100 etc. at $4000 are wicked, but I'd go with the sony or canon first if you are looking for a camera in the less than $1000 range. The digital elph series from canon is quite good in my experience, I haven't used the A70 at all, but I've used dozens of digital cameras, including 4 or 5 canons, and I have nothing bad to say about the canons at all. Fuji announced today 2 new high end cameras to be released this fall, and historically the fall is huge for new camera's being released. If you can wait, I'd wait to see what happens in September/October for new camera releases.

The closest engines to F1 that you or I could buy are in sportbikes... Nothing in any car is close. Some very interesting phenomia begins to contribute at above ~8000rpm, and I suppose it isn't financially feasible for automakers to make engines to these extremes.

Hey man, we've all been 17. (except those that are 16) And trust me, many of us have been through EXACTLY the same thing you are talking about here. Know that you are making the right decision to go away to college, and while at times it may seem to be the wrong choice, your time there will be the best of your life! (I know, it probably doesn't seem possible) Remember, there will be thousands of people in the same boat as you there, away from home for the first time, wondering how they are going to survive it. Its amazing how easy it is to make friends in the first couple weeks of first year... funny too, most of those friendships last a very, very long time. My advice is to dive right in to the college scene. Find stuff you enjoy, make some friends and don't look back. You're going to have some rough times, but the good times will quickly outweight the bad. And the family is only ever a phone call away.

I'm pretty sure 240z Turbo did that at one point.

Now those are the money shots I was hoping for as I started reading this thread. James, is that intake runner unmodified at this point? I'm impressed if this is the case! As far as the valve guide goes anyway, its really well incorporated into the runner, providing less restriction than a lot of heads I've seen. The exhaust on the other hand... Sure looks ugly to me. Problem is, with the exception of shorter valve guides, what can you do?

We had 6 or 7 people in there last night, it was a good time. Note: the software for the chatroom needs some updating, its pretty lousy. 7pm sunday nights sounds good to me.

I've used C&R rads before too, top notch and nothing but good things to say about their construction. Check them out!

Well it definately won't be as load as half the harleys out there, as cody said. Mandrel bends will run you between $20-$30 each, for U-bends. Check out http://www.burnsstainless.com for sizing. One of the best companies I've dealt with for actually getting stuff to you FAST and getting the order right... I added 3/4 of a turn to the granger valve, and I'm hitting 7psi. (and the pop-off valve is venting) So, very sensitive as I suspected. Toluene is a great fuel additive, just as the formula 1 guys from the 80's. (75psi of boost baby!) I believe Scottie-GNZ posted some info on Toluene and Xylene additives a few years ago, including how to mix it. If you can't find the post in the search, I'm pretty sure it was from http://www.turbobuicks.com or someplace like that. Just try not to get any on you... Lucky us, we have 94 octane widely available up here. I'm using a straight through 2.5" muffler on a 2.5" press bent system (I know, I know) and honestly it sounds GREAT, but might be a bit loud for me. Its a tough trade off, it sounds mean... but it might be annoying on any trip longer than an hour. We'll see about that, I guess I can always just crank the stereo and drown it out. As far as finding out how much is too much, its pretty much just trial and error without the right equipment. Just make sure you can hear the engine well when you start pushing it. Also, make sure you are going uphill when you test, so you know that the engine is well under load, and you don't get any surprises later.

There are lots of good uses for check valves this just happens to be one you can set. One problem with using it on a fuel system, it uses a straight thread to attach the halves together, so it would leak through the threads... Now that I think about it, that kills most other uses for it.

Well I hope you get the car on time! That would be the first surprise, nothing ever happens as expected. I would be careful with the grainger valve at the start. I gave mine a shot last night, and barely spun together I was getting 3psi. I expect it will be quite sensative to change, though I broke a nipple getting it off, so didn't have time to play with it more. Anyway, don't be too aggressive with the valve adjustment at the start. I'd keep your car running on premium gas, and keep the boost to 7-10psi before you have your IC installed. You're better off keeping the boost level stock, and doing 100 miles or so and making sure there are no loose bolts, etc. I'm at about 225 miles on my car now, and I've probably had 5 or 6 minor "fixes" along the way. Loose belts, IC pipe rubbing pulley, etc. The little things you want to sort out before you really get on the car. Exhaust will be loud, but not painfully. You should make it home without permanent hearing loss.

Sorry, I can't help you with most of your questions. It will be a factor, of course. You are raising the center of gravity, as well as the aerodynamic drag. (larger frontal area with more of the tires profile showing) The questions is, how often do you drive at 10/10ths? There seems to be a happy medium for street cars, as long as you can get over large speedbumps without any issues, I'd say you are high enough. Any higher than that seems unnecessarily high to me.

Wow, those wheels look great. I can't believe how small your front brakes look in them though!

Don't judge your stance until the car has been around the block, it will settle quite a lot. Dude, you have to get driving this car. Show those people at work what an old school street car looks and sounds like.