Duke

My favorite part is in the question section... Someone asks: "Does it come with a Flux Capacitor or similar?

Okay - frightening admission. I own the first appearance of Ghost rider from Marvel. Bought it many moons ago. Always been a big GR fan... http://www.marvelstore.co.uk/images/universe/ghost_1.jpg Hey how do you post pictures here?

Awful. Sorry to hear it. Hopefully you can still work on the car....

Yeah I thought about that, but this puts the car on the road now rather than a year from now when the trunk is done, also Speed racer is running a stock tank, so that's pretyy good cred - considering how great his car looks. I can always sell the refurbished tank

Thanks all for the PM's Chelle, Speed, Mike. I decided to boil, etch, and coat the stock tank, $240. Less fuss and muss. Until I put a bigger motor into the GTOz, and a trunk kit to separate the back sevtion, there's no need for a Cell, so I'll stick with a stock tank for the time being. Regards,

Anyone, anyone, ...bueller?

Looks good. So the outer chrome piece, and the cylinder are both part of the honda part everyone is talking about? Any idea where to get these. Chelle made it sounds like they are rarer than hens teeth. I did notice that about the old GTO...heh heh drives the restoration folks nuts.

Need to put in a new gas tank and fuel pump for a 1976 280Z. This would be a good time to go aftermarket racing cell I believe, plus It's a GTO body mod, and I need room for dual exhaust and eventually a trunck kit. Time is short. Which fuel tank, fual pump combo would you use or should I just go stock? Ordering/vendor/sources also needed. I will like go SBC in the next 1-2 years. Thanks for all advice and sources in advance... Cheers,

What's the llikelyhood of a Superbird, or a 69 TA being in the junkyard today, or half of the other cars shown for that matter. I guess that's where the fantasy appeal is, these junkers are more rare than restored cars. One other thing, there's a Chevy air cleaner in evey single car. Strange. no?

Any photos from the outside after install? Thanks

Indeed an ugly challenge. When one buys a tuned car, It's likely the seller is going to describe the mods in order to build value and get some return on the mods. The scary part is that someone taking a car to a track and violating the warrenty is tough to catch - There is not physical change detectable by the buyer, and it is not likely that the warrnety service/car company is going to check registries until something goes wrong and that is after you've bought the car. Like wise Carfax. So it's pretty concerning.

Pretty Concerning...What if the car was raced before you bought it, by this logic car companies and insurance companies wouldn't care who the owner was - only the car history. These companies spend a lot of money promoting a racy sporty image and sponsoring racing, so this seems nuts at best, disingenuine a least.

Speed, Could you and any other GTO owners (Chelle, Mike, others?) post closeup shots on your door and trunk handle? BTW, Say hello to Trixie and the Fam. Thanks

I would like to open up a public fee for hire track that was designed to look like a city street complete with big potholes and old american cars randomly jetison out onto the track. The kicker is I would change it up constantly and sometimes throw tire puncturing debris or sand onto the course. My question is: Do think anyone racing on the course would sue me if they crashed and damaged their car or got injured?

Jmor, Great post. It's right on the money about approaching it from a total systems standpoint. That link to Terry's car has really got me thinking. On a related note, a lot of people lower American muscle cars by adding drop spindles. It's a bit of a shortcut for lowering the car or adding taller wheels - hadn't seen that approach in the Z world.

Nice touch Chelle, the originals had those as well. Was planning to make the same mods in mine. Is Custom Autowork your full time gig?

...One of these days when you get a little sparetime you should put a couple hours into that car of yours so it doesn't feel neglected

Jmor, My comment on the design and appropriateness of the tire rim combo was in support of your premise that the rim and tire combo with the smaller rim often has less total material, rubber or aluminium. Basically because the structure of the tire is a balloon relying on tensile strength so less material for total defined (controlled) volume. The reason to go for larger rims is for sidewall support and less flex,,,da da da,etc. etc., better handling. Go with a carbon fiber rim and you're golden, as long as your wallet is golden as well.

The total weight of the wheel tire combo matters to suspension reponsiveness. (unsprung weight.) Less is better. The distribution of weight in relation to the center of the hub is the reciprocating mass. Closer in is better. This has an effect on acceleration. Dragsters run big ass tires because they have around 9 billion hp and 7 billion foot pounds of torque (well, something like that...) so they can afford it. The taller your tires the more force needs to be put through the system to turns them and overcome the inertia. The drive line needs to be more robust and so forth. Think of a Seesaw, if you shift the weight to the center it takes less force to counter it. (on a seesaw it is gravitational force obviously) That's why you see parents sitting close to the fulcrum (center) of the seesaw with their kids way out on the end. You tire is like a onesided seesaw with the drive force coming from the center. That being said I think the original question was about topend speed, not acceleration, so the short answer is that adding taller tires is like shifting into a higher gear theorhetically a higher top speed if you can overcome the drag. For the record, the polymer carbon combo in most tires isn't terribly less dense than aluminium, Some alloy are heavier, some are lighter. They make low density tire compounds as well, but they wear out faster. The design and appropriateness of the tire rim combo is what is important and that depends on what type of racing, ie side loading vs acceration etc. etc. etc.

Thanks Chelle. Looks good. You're running a stock tank then? Doesn't the stock fuel pump put out around 70psi? What are you running now?

Glenn Bunch racing somewhere on the net.

where Fd is the force of drag,ρ is the density of the fluid (Note that for the earth's atmosphere, the density can be found using the barometric formula),v is the velocity of the object relative to the fluid,A is the reference area, andCd is the drag coefficient (constant, e.g. 0.25 to 0.45 for a car). Because drag increases with the squared velocity, it means it basically gets harder and harder to go faster. Ie. for each unit increase in the velocity of the vehicle in any given time interval, there is a increase in both the total mass and the velocity of air acting on the car. Thus a nonlinear increasing power curve requirement. On the acceleration side, increased tire diameter means an increase in reciprocating mass, requiring more force to overcome inertia.

Bigger wheels (taller) is like changing your gearing. You theorhetically have a higher top end as long as your HP can overcome the additional resistance (drag) at speed.

Chelle, Do you have a more detailed photo or info on the gas line to the tank Thanks

Nice tires. Theres' a lot of tire and rim spec info in the thread " Ferrari GTO wheel and tire info "which might be useful.