katman

Perhaps, although I personally consider the stock 240/260/280 parts to be pretty dang efficient strength to weight-wise, and pretty tolerant of damage (nicks, dents, etc.) before catastrophic failure. Furthermore, many "Plain Jane" looking OEM parts are actually normalized and heat treated after welding so their material properties are better than you'd expect.

He has done all the calculations (moment of bending etc etc etc...). IF you really want them' date=' I can ask him to mail me them to me. Keep in mind, this is not the first time he has made custome suspension pieces.....he has made stuff for various race teams in various types of racing.[/quote'] Yeah, I want to see the "moment of bending". Generally race cars get inspected at regular intervals for things like cracks in suspension pieces. They also get special inspections every time they go off road and hit the equivalent of a pothole. They also surround the driver with a full cage, 6 pt harness, helmet, blah blah so if your trick suspension fails you don't die. Me thinks street car people generally do none of these things. A good race car part isn't always a good street car part. Now that control arm in the picture might be perfectly fine, but depending on the wall thickness I see a crack in its future right at the intersection of the forward diagonal. Some folks see dead people, I see cracks.

All we need now is the stress analysis....

The camber plates are basically and evolution (for the better) of the old Tilton camber plates. Design Products is Don Oldenberg and his parts are first class. It's probably still just him and his wife so not unusual that the phone doesn't get answered regularly. The spherical bearing in the camber plate is probably still a 5/8 diameter, so some shocks have to have their shaft turned down and some can be adapted with a sleeve (most likely). Since there's no rubber involved here they're kinda harsh for the street, and the spherical bearing liners wear out (at least they did on all my race cars) so you get a rattling sound caused by the bearing ball translating within it's race that might be annoying.

It's been hosted by somebody on this site but after a quick search yesterday I didn't find it. I've emailed a scanned copy to several people, perhaps whoever put it up before will speak up. I'll see if I can put it up somewhere. A search on "ITS 240Z cage article" does produce links to several threads of great interest however. Good thought provoking discussions from folks other than me...

That figures to be around a 10.9:1 compression ratio depending on the combustion chamber mods. The piston sticking out 0.020 ain't too big a deal (on the 1973 L24 that's how much the stock pistons were "positive deck") since the gasket is usually about 0.052 thick, but as previously mentioned valve clearance could be a problem depending on the cam. Play Doh, fer sure.

Ahhh, chassis stiffening. The S&W cage won't do much of that. It will, however, add a bunch of nearly worthless weight above the CG. The 280ZX, like the Z that preceeded it, is most flexible forward of the firewall. A 3 point strut tower bar would be a giant first step, do some searches on that. After that you really need a custom engineered cage. Most cages are designed for safety. Effective stiffening (versus mental masturabation) usually encroaches seriously on the passenger compartment, so effective cages are rarely seen in street car applications IMHO.

And you want a cage for what purpose? Sorta need to know that first.

Gee, what do you guys do for cabin air egress after you weld up the holes behind the rear quarter window? Use a '70-71 hatch? And is anybody else worried about moisture festering inside that cowl in front of the windshield after you plug up all the vents? Admirable work though...

What is the intended purpose of the cage, chassis stiffening for the street, competition, track days, hmmm? There's a lot of cages out there that do little more than add weight up high. Search the archives for discussions on cages, somewhere there's a link to an old Z Car Magazine article on an ITS 240Z cage that makes a good starting point.

You're thinking about Balanced Performance up in Suwanee, they know Z's and hybrids. However, if it's custom exhaust work you need then try Grand Muffler off of South Cobb Drive in Marietta, and for AC work I think Auto Cool off of Spring Road (Marietta again) is still there. Both shops have done custom Z work for me in the past.

Generally a mid corner ("coasting", or the period between the transitions of brakes off and throttle full on) understeer indicates not enough rear spring or bar, however, slow corners in Z's migrate to understeer so yours is not a unique problem. Even though your turn in is good you might consider a smidge more static front toe out, say to 2mm total, because of the Z's nasty bump steer characteristics. We've found this to fix low speed corner understeer without affecting high speed balance. If that doesn't fix you a smidge more rear spring or bar until the high speed corners scare you. Shocks probably not it because you didn't say anything bad happens in the transitions. I've always felt castor is overrated and the effects of changing it on a Z too subtle to notice for weekend warriors. Driver technique sometimes needs to be modified since we don't have the luxury of aerodynamic devices and other stuff. What tires are we talking about and how much horsepower?

On ITS prepped motors a dual exhaust kills the power. Big bore and big cam, who knows? For a street car it is probably worse than a single 2.5 with a Dynomax SUper Turbo or equivalent.

I take breaks all the time, when working on Z32's and 240Z's. Seems like you can take a Z32 break when you're working on a 240 and visa versa. The coffee doesn't mind.

While you're inspecting struts for ITS useage be sure to take a close look at the bolt holes for the parking brake bracket. Been known to grow a crack out of them and fail the strut. Some IT guys leave the parking brake and hardware off, including the bracket on the strut, which means you got an open fastener hole in a stressed area versus a filled hole (bad, right Dan Baldwin?). If you leave the bracket off put the little bolts back in.

I love Borla when it comes out of somebody elses race budget. For the money a Dynomax SuperTurbo can't be beat on the street.

What tricks would those be?

The sonic problems you'll have with an enclosed 3" tube can range from no symptoms (and no performance gain) to a car that won't run over 4000 rpm (and no performance gain). Nice work but I'd bet 5 bucks you'll be worse off than with a properly ventilated stock air cleaner with a K&N, cold air or not.

They have any Nissan dealers in Italy? I'd get a factory reman. Or, does ATK or any of the other large rebuilders hve a presence in Italy? A final alternative might be to look into shipping via the airlines. I was surprised how cheap it was to fly an engine from west coast to east coast on Delta. I'm sure a Sunbelt or Rebello would put one on a pallet. Only 275,000 miles? Just broke in.

Factory Service Manual. Don't leave home without it. 1-5-3-6-2-4

Oh, okay. As long as it isn't about making horsepower, then it would be the classic "cheap horsepower" paradox. What Jon said will probably help and can't hurt, unlike a full blown kitchen table port & polish. Do what he said and you'll be fine.

Stock spring rate is in the factory service manual, what year/model you talking about? As far as what spring rates we all have, is this a poll, or do you have an application you're interested in? What's the intended purpose? I'm happy with a lot of different combinations, depends on what I'm trying to do with the car.

For real power: Sunbelt Performance Engines, Suwanee GA. 770-932-0160. On a good day they'll answer the phone. Everything else is just mental masturbation.