katman

OMG! Thanks for the kind words, I had no idea you were there. That was my first of a dozen+ Z's, and the car used as a template to write the first set of Atlanta Region rules for Improved Touring GT (ITGT preceeded ITS). Ahhh, if I only knew then what I know now.... Merry Christmas to all.

Hey John- Checked my notes and we ultimately ran lower spring rates on the EP car with the slicks than we had on the ITS car that won the ARRC twice, so I stand corrected. We had tried higher and didn't like it. 400F/350R on the ITS car, 'bout 100lb/in lower on the EP car. Before we got the ShockTek's we only went 325/285 on the ITS car.

Hey John- Checked my notes and we ultimately ran lower spring rates on the EP car with the slicks than we had on the ITS car that won the ARRC twice, so I stand corrected. We had tried higher and didn't like it. 400F/350R on the ITS car, 'bout 100lb/in lower on the EP car. Before we got the ShockTek's we only went 325/285 on the ITS car.

Yup, the big restriction was the stock exhaust from the headpipe back. Once that's fixed, as DAW suggests, we can talk generalities. In general, a header gets you about 4-5% peak hp over a stock manifold for most apps from a 4 cylinder Honda to a 454 Cheby. So that's like 6hp on the Honda (or 240Z) and 18 on the Cheby. For a good header. A bad one gets you no horsepower, a potential big torque valley, and lots of extra underhood heat. So for the $200 MSA/Monza/Whatever, you get another radiator under the hood. For $750 you get a Stahl with 1-1/2 primaries and maybe 8 hp. Your call.

Like MKelly said it's the shaft bushing inside the shock body. I don't know what Koni might be able to substitute. It is possible they no longer have that problem, its been several years since I knew anybody intimately familiar with them on a Z. I agree with everything else he said as well.

Like MKelly said it's the shaft bushing inside the shock body. I don't know what Koni might be able to substitute. It is possible they no longer have that problem, its been several years since I knew anybody intimately familiar with them on a Z. I agree with everything else he said as well.

Is there going to be a diagonal in the plane of the main hoop?

All those sites are correct. The MSA T/C kit is what I was referring to with my comment about the plastic degrading over time. Call Crawford, ask for Doug, then ask if he can still make the spherical T/C bearing for ITS 240Z's. Bet he can. The DP racing control arm kit can be IT legal if you epoxy or press fit the pieces that capture the bearing. No real fore/aft loads so not a lot of strength needed. A "rules nerd" may have a problem with a tack weld in ITS but I'd do it anyway for convenience and take my chances in Tech. Other spherical bearing apps for ITS? Well the upper camber plates usually have one to locate the top of the strut of course, but otherwise no. Since you can't hack up the rear control arm in ITS you don't have the room on either end for a spherical bearing, so a sleeve bearing is required. We used Nylatron for the outer bearings, and the inner bearings were offset like the old Kontrolle camber/toe adjust kit commonaly available from places like MSA, except I made my own using Oilite Bronze sleeves and nylon thrust surfaces and a design not as prone to binding as the originals.

Hey, we won an ARRC in ITS with shocks that didn't cost us $200, for all four! Talk about junk! So yeah, you can be competitive with all sorts of shocks. I call everything that isn't on my race car junk. My biggest problem with GC's was in a BMW app. I wanted them to work, everybody else in the class (ITS) was using them, and I love Jay's hardware. I was willing to write off our bad experience with them on the 240 as "we were just spoiled with the ShockTek's and didn't spend enough time with the GC's to get them to work". However, after 2 seasons of changing every possible thing ('cept GC's Advanced Design shock) on the BMW's and having both driver's always claim that the only way you could tell you were losing the back end was if you were looking out the side window, and the only way you could tell you were understeering was if you ran out of steering lock, I made a wholesale swap to Bilstein and proceeded to win the last 2 ARRC's. Went from scary cars with no feel to what a Bimmer should feel like- a blast to drive. I actually have two cars set up with radically different spring rates and two different Bilstein shocks and they both rock. All my former Koni friends always complained about the upper bushing wearing out prematurely, and Truechoice hammers you on the rebuilds. Otherwise I like them. We used to race Tokico but they don't really support racing so eventually our spring rates on the Z's outgrew their off-the-shelf parts, but I'd use them again on a street car. Bilsteins just seem to last, they're rebuildable and revalveable, and don't cost as much as Koni's.

Hey, we won an ARRC in ITS with shocks that didn't cost us $200, for all four! Talk about junk! So yeah, you can be competitive with all sorts of shocks. I call everything that isn't on my race car junk. My biggest problem with GC's was in a BMW app. I wanted them to work, everybody else in the class (ITS) was using them, and I love Jay's hardware. I was willing to write off our bad experience with them on the 240 as "we were just spoiled with the ShockTek's and didn't spend enough time with the GC's to get them to work". However, after 2 seasons of changing every possible thing ('cept GC's Advanced Design shock) on the BMW's and having both driver's always claim that the only way you could tell you were losing the back end was if you were looking out the side window, and the only way you could tell you were understeering was if you ran out of steering lock, I made a wholesale swap to Bilstein and proceeded to win the last 2 ARRC's. Went from scary cars with no feel to what a Bimmer should feel like- a blast to drive. I actually have two cars set up with radically different spring rates and two different Bilstein shocks and they both rock. All my former Koni friends always complained about the upper bushing wearing out prematurely, and Truechoice hammers you on the rebuilds. Otherwise I like them. We used to race Tokico but they don't really support racing so eventually our spring rates on the Z's outgrew their off-the-shelf parts, but I'd use them again on a street car. Bilsteins just seem to last, they're rebuildable and revalveable, and don't cost as much as Koni's.

You may have to call. Revalving is about $65 per. The shock used to be inexpensive, like less than $100. I have a reciept for a car I did last year I'll dig up. Up to 240lb springs we actually got away with a Tokico BZ3039 which I don't think they make anymore, so the Bilstein is proly the cheapest all around way to go for spring rates beyond the normal Tokico Illumina range. However, for street/autox I wouldn't go this route- I'd try Illumina's so I had some adjustment to soften it up for street. We've blown out Illumina's at 250lb/in spring rates but that was years ago, anybody have any experience with them at Cameron's rates? The Bilstein I mentioned requires struts shortened about an inch, I can look up specifics when I get back to work on Monday if anyone wants them. Bilstein could also revalve a stock Z shock if your strut length was stock.

You may have to call. Revalving is about $65 per. The shock used to be inexpensive, like less than $100. I have a reciept for a car I did last year I'll dig up. Up to 240lb springs we actually got away with a Tokico BZ3039 which I don't think they make anymore, so the Bilstein is proly the cheapest all around way to go for spring rates beyond the normal Tokico Illumina range. However, for street/autox I wouldn't go this route- I'd try Illumina's so I had some adjustment to soften it up for street. We've blown out Illumina's at 250lb/in spring rates but that was years ago, anybody have any experience with them at Cameron's rates? The Bilstein I mentioned requires struts shortened about an inch, I can look up specifics when I get back to work on Monday if anyone wants them. Bilstein could also revalve a stock Z shock if your strut length was stock.

You'll get more intelligent responses if you use caps and punctuation, dude.

Yes, simply because we never collected enough data after being forced into them to see need for a change. EProd cars we run about 500F/425R and the ITS car about 400F/350R on a 240Z. Bilsteins are to some degree "self adjusting" for different tracks. Bottom line is for the weekend racer its easy for the race engineer to be way more precise than the driver can achieve. My experience with shocks in non-winged cars for amateurs (albeit, extremely talented amateurs) is that the right shock tuning did wonders for tire life and overall race time, but not really much for individual lap time. In other words, the fastest laps we could run with el cheapo shocks were within hundredths of the fastest laps we ran with perfect shocks, but we could run them more consistently, and the driver wasn't scared doing them. And tire wear went to ZERO. You have to have a lot of track time and data acquisition to really maximize the benefits of an adjustable shock and for most racers that's just polishing turds.

Yes, simply because we never collected enough data after being forced into them to see need for a change. EProd cars we run about 500F/425R and the ITS car about 400F/350R on a 240Z. Bilsteins are to some degree "self adjusting" for different tracks. Bottom line is for the weekend racer its easy for the race engineer to be way more precise than the driver can achieve. My experience with shocks in non-winged cars for amateurs (albeit, extremely talented amateurs) is that the right shock tuning did wonders for tire life and overall race time, but not really much for individual lap time. In other words, the fastest laps we could run with el cheapo shocks were within hundredths of the fastest laps we ran with perfect shocks, but we could run them more consistently, and the driver wasn't scared doing them. And tire wear went to ZERO. You have to have a lot of track time and data acquisition to really maximize the benefits of an adjustable shock and for most racers that's just polishing turds.

Bilstein Ca. You can actually get Shox.com and some of the other distributors to work it out with Bilstein when you buy them instead of after the fact. Bill Hindorf is the racing support guy out there and Jack French is the parts guy. We are talking road racing here, aren't we? I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no drag racin'.

Bilstein Ca. You can actually get Shox.com and some of the other distributors to work it out with Bilstein when you buy them instead of after the fact. Bill Hindorf is the racing support guy out there and Jack French is the parts guy. We are talking road racing here, aren't we? I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no drag racin'.

Carrerra's- junk. Koni's- junk after a few races, upper bushings don't seem to last. GC Advanced Design- really junk, not enough volume on the rebound side of the Z strut, couldn't ever make them work. Ditto the BMW application we tried for ITS racing. Total crap. The people I find that love them are also lose when they race me. Bilstein P30-0032 revalved 300/100 in a shortened strut housing with some P/N 450424 gland nuts to adapt them to a Z strut thread. That's the non adjustable we went to in ITS after the SCCA outlawed our remote reservior double adjustables for that class, and also the shock that was used on the ERatadz Motorsports EP 240Z that finished second in the RunOffs 2 times before converting to the ShockTek remote reservior shock banned from ITS. Now I happen to have a set of the ShockTek struts for sale (only 4 sets ever built and the other 3 sets are in EP cars) if anybody has $2k burning a hole in their pocket for a great road racing shock. They're baseed on Penske and Bilstein parts, easily rebuildable and revalveable but ShockTek got bought and is defunct. Your best "still supported" alternative would be JohnC's remote reservior setup based on the Penske. Ain't much, but that's what I think about shocks.