luseboy

http://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/PROD/40-2401 Not sure if you can make it work in the series 2 or not, I'm sure it can be done. If you find one localy for free/cheap, don't turn it down. Mine was in awful shape, it was cracked in 2. I was able to glue it back together, and re-finish it, and paint it with some plasti-dip, and now it looks awesome, everyone thinks it's brand new. We'll see how my magic works on my dash, it's been 2 months on that already haha. Is the car up and running and all ready to drive? If not, I'd save your money for suspension, chassis, engine, and drivetrain restorations first, as it's not like you need a center console to drive the car.

Haha I wanted to go with the xxr 002's at first, then I found some drag wheels I liked, but then I couldn't stop looking at sakuras, and I heard about the aleicas but couldn't find them anywhere in the us so I emailed this company in the UK who said they could send them to me, and then I emailed rota and got a phone number to call, and was quoted under 600 for all 4 shipped in whatever color I want, and in offsets -5, -15, and -25, whatever I chose, and in 15x8 or 15x9. I was stoked! Haha I wanted to have 7's, as I really don't need wide wheels, but 8's are awesome too. I'm gonna be running 225/45r/15 hankook ventus rs-3's which should give me some grip . Thanks for the how to on pad change, looks about identical to doing the rears on my mini except minus all the random sized tools that I took weeks to locate haha. I will just buy the HF tool since I had to rent one from kragen before, and in order to use it, I had to modify the fitting. In hindsight, I wish I had just gotten the HF tool. Anyways I'm sold on silver mine, I will be using this kit and their front stage 4 kit. It's a great price for what it is. I know 15's will be a tight fit, but it will work out!

Haha ya I love the aleica's! Well I could get them with that offset but it seems like zg flares fit best with et -20 or so but it still needs a spacer in the rear for the brakes, so that the spokes themselves are farther away from the caliper, so if I get -5 and put 15mm spacers on each wheel I should get what I'm looking for, I hope. Oh I see what your saying now. Seems like a good remedy to the problem of the air bleeder. I mean how often do you really need to bleed brakes anyways? I guess if you track a lot and frequently boil the fluid it could be pretty often... But even then it seems like it doesn't need to happen all that often? One other thing I've been wondering about, is do you need to use a special tool to push the piston back in? The rear brakes on my mini are a similar design, and the caliper needs to be spun and compressed at the same time. Same thing here I assume?

Well based on what I saw on there, you can get away with 15's so long as they don't hit the back of the spoke design. I was thinking the problem was the top of the caliper hitting the inside of the wheel, but I know understand that the real problem is the front of the caliper. Well the wheels I'm getting are 15x8 et -5 rota aleica's so I figure a -20 offset should fit the rear zg flare well. I've got a bunch of 5mm spacers I can test fit with to figure out how much spacer I need, I'm sure it will work out. I'm Planning to use the wilwood MC as well. I'm a little confused by what you're saying... Did you install the calipers wrong or are you just saying you'll take them off and turn them the other way around during bleeding? It should be fine, I mean it works on mustangs...

Well I just realized that mustang forums would be the place to go for info on fitting 15" wheels. Looks like you can get them to fit with a little shaving of the caliper and/or spacers. Emailed Edan about his kit, and he gave me a very lengthly, thoughtful, and honest reply. He said that the use of a 1/4 in. spacer has proved to make the kit work on most 15" wheels. Well the wheels I want aren't enough of an aggressive offset for ZG flares anyways so I should be able to put in a 15mm spacer on each wheel and make 'em fit. It'll be a few months before I get to the stage of acctually doing brake stuff but I will let you all know what happens. I'll post pics of my brakes installed too, so people can see some more about this kit, which I believe to be the best kit for our Z's. -Austin

Haha well I'm 18, and still in highschool so I still have the drive to get the car on the road haha. I realized basically that once I'm older I won't really have the energy and drive to do what I'm doing, which is basically spending every waking moment working on the Z or researching about different parts or upgrades. I thought about it too, but to get something that high qaulity is pretty tough without spending about the same or more. Plus ground control is a great company and they really stand by there products. Haha yes, you will definitely have an edge on me haha. Haha well I wanted to learn the car without killing myself. Plus I'm not that much of a power freak haha. Haha ya I used to think my mini was quick, and I used to think it handled really well. Well the Z will be more powerful, and it will handle better haha. Haha well it's not going to be as loud as most Z's, but it will certainly put a humongous grin on my face Haha well I would've used a pipe cutter but the guy at work has a super nice chop saw and he said I could use it and to me that just seems like a better option. However, if I didn't have access to that, I would certainly have used a pipe cutter. Be warned, that metal is thick stuff! Haha well I always get people against my way of doing things, and I pretty much always prove them wrong haha. Haha well it wasn't so much that I was in a hurry, but the chop saw just makes such a nice, clean cut. It was pretty cool to watch the metal get blueish from the heat about a cm before the part where it was acctually cutting through. Plus that thing cut the tube like fricken butter.

Haha I came to the conclusion that it's pretty much the best way to do it on a Z with the exception of doing the AZC kit. But at the cost of that kit, I decided that the GC kit is the next best thing, and is really a better kit for street driving. Plus it's been proven for many many years and is what all the fast racers do. Feel free to PM me with any questions or anything, I really don't mind helping out! But ya I want to have my car pretty low, but not slammed. I don't like slammed cars much, unless they're drift cars, then it kinda makes sense, but I'm not a drifter, and Z's aren't drift cars haha. Cutting springs is a big no-no in my mind haha, I originally was gonna do the s13 coilover conversion, but that really is just about the worst way to do it in my opinion, unless of course, you plan on slamming your car haha. Glad I could be of inspiration . Buy your kit from TTT, they are near here and won't take long to ship, only took 2 days to get here, so probably 3 to get there. Haha it's a wierd time of the build, it's acctually really amazing that I don't feel overwhelmed. I seriously have like 20 different little projects going on at a time haha. Turbo motor I guess you'll have a faster Z than me haha.

Thanks , I'm really excited about them. Once I finish my engine bay, I finally get to install a part, the X-member, I'm pretty stoked since up until then it will all have been removal of parts. It's all freshly painted and looks great as well. It will be quite some time before I get to acctually put in the coilovers though, as I will have to get LCA's, T/C rods, Tie rod ends, RCA's, strut mount insulators, etc. before I get there, but can't wait for that . I got the coilovers from TTT and they reccomended 10" so that's what I went with. They're really nice springs too, eibach race springs, well made, in the USA, linear rate. I got 225 lbs for the front and 250lbs for the rear for the rates. Should handle very well when I'm done, and give me plenty of room to lower and raise the suspension.

Well the way I see it I used less leg work... But either way, I like my method better, it's a much cleaner cut. You can use your pipe cutters all you want, I'll stick with a chop saw. Granted if I had to buy the tool, a pipe cutter would probably be what I'd choose due to the cost, but if I can borrow a chop saw, I will use it.

Haha that comes next. Well I have to save up for about the next month and a half to get the car up to date with registration and everything, then I will have some money to spend on parts. Once I finish the front suspension, I will move onto the rear suspension and chassis, including frame rails, subframe connectors, brake and fuel hardlines, and new undercoating. Then I will get the car painted, get some new feet and shoes and brakes, Then basically re-wire everything, drop the engine in, install everything, and then turn the key and hope she starts . After that, it's just interior, for now anyways . God I can't wait to drive this thing. I ordered the key fob I will be using, and got some cool stickers that I will put on the car as well from the same company. Yes, I do think that far in advance . Idk just the thought of foot to floor, tires screeching, jamming into 3rd gear coming out of a corner, that's what's keeping me going Oh and for my exhaust, I finally made up my mind: MSA TBC coated 6-1 header, straight into a hushpower 2 resonator, then a dynomax race bullet muffler, then a borla pro-xs muffler and finally out a 2.5" tip. All with 2.5" piping. And I will have an o2 sensor in there somewhere for a wideband, as well as a venturi valve for a crankcase evac system. I think that will give me the quiet but exotic exhaust sound I like

Finished these today. Freaked out because I put the gland nut on before putting the threaded tube on and then I couldn't get it to go on so I was scared that the gland nut would be stuck. It came off fairly easily, the blue loctite hadn't dried yet. I had to steel wool the paint down on the driver's side strut insert and it ended up sliding in, a tight fit, but it works. I put a **** ton of grease inside the tube before sliding both inserts in, and then poured some old 20w50 motor oil I had in my garage. Then I cleaned off the threaded portions for the loctite, and pipe wrenched my gland nut on. Pretty darn happy with the results. Also started chipping off the paint that I jascoe'd, it came off a little harder than I expected. I will take a couple pics of the painted X member, steering knuckles, and steering rack brackets soon. Probably not tomorrow since it's my first day back at school and I have work afterwards, but soon none the less. What do you guys think of my coilovers?

Well I used a really nice milwaukee chop saw that a guy I work with let me use. It was really clean, and chopped through like butter. If you kept reading my post, you would see me say that since both were cut at the same angle, you can rotate them and get them perfectly straight. I will do the same thing on the rear struts, it was a nice clean cut, and everything worked out perfectly. I installed my struts today and wow, perfect fit with the gland nut included with the struts. A tubing cutter seems like a pain, these tubes are pretty darn thick. You can talk trash about my methods, but I think my finished product speaks for itself.

Interesting read. I'm wondering why you said to not use a chop saw. I finished my coilovers (with the GC kit from TTT) today acctually, and used a nice chop saw to section the tubes. No it wasn't a perfectly square cut, but both sides were cut at the same angle, so a rotation of the top piece found the two pieces to be perfectly parallel. It also took all of 10 minutes to make the cuts for the front tubes. I also measured differently, I measured the overall length of the stock strut insert, and the overall length of the bz3099 (illumina rear mr2), and cut out the difference. I double checked by measuring how much thread should be showing on top of the stock insert for the gland nut. I found the difference between them to be just under 4 cm, and the amount of threads to be about 1cm, or just under. It all worked out great. I plan to use the same procedure for the rear strut tubes. Anyways just found it interesting that you said not to do those things. Worked fine for me .

Well, got both strut tubes sectioned and got the gc perch welded on. Welding gas made a huge difference with that. Primered and painted both of them, finished that toady. I will post pics tomorrow. Gonna install the actual strut inserts tomorrow, we'll see how that goes. I spent a couple days getting the passenger side one to fit since it was such a tight squeeze. A combination of dremel tools, filing, and a small cylinder hone on a drill to the inside of the strut tube, and steel wool to the outside of the insert got it to fit, finally! I also primered and painted the X-member, steering knuckles, and steering rack mount brackets. I will start re-building the rack itself tomorrow. Basically I'm just going to take the whole thing apart and clean it out, re-lube everything, paint the outside, and get some new boots for it. Luckily, the inner tie rods feel great, so I will not be replacing them. The outers will be replaced with moog tie rod ends, and I may even cut them in half and make them adjustable from the middle as well, since I'm gainging negative camber from the adjustable control arms, and I will probably put them out too far for the tie rod end. We'll see if I can get them out enough so I can have 0 toe in the front. Aside from that, I sprayed the engine bay with jasco, used up a whole spray can, but that didn't cover everything so I'll have to grab another one tomorrow. Stuff is starting to come together

That's awesome! You got lucky, thats for sure! Nice, hopefully that goes well! I simply just used a woodworking chisel that I didn't care about anymore. You have to make about 3 passes over each spot to get it all off, but it comes off pretty easy. Don't apply heat to it though, that makes it into a thick, gooey paste. Haha my mom finally went off at me after getting the undercoating off the driver's side wheel well. I cleaned everything up as a Christmas present though. I'm not looking forward to chiseling everything off under the car. I don't have the luxury of being able to use a rotisserie, so I will have to crawl under the car and chisel away. Welding under there will be just as fun, and will leave me some nice little brands all over my skin . Have you checked your frame rails under the floors yet? That's where most of the rust damage on my car is. I'm replacing mine with some baddog frame rails and adding the subframe connectors for added stiffness to the chassis.

Sounds like your making good progress. I found a heat gun to be helpful, but you have to be careful because too much heat will make it stick to the metal, but there's a sweet spot where the tar crap comes off easily. Wait until you go to chisel off undercoating, that's the fun stuff! Zero rust?? That's impossible :lol:, either that or you're just really lucky!

The wheels I'm going for are 1 piece and would likely fit. I'm looking to see if someone can get me an inner radius measurement. That seems like enough clearance for most 15" 1 piece wheels. Is there anywhere that material could be safely shaved off from the caliper if clearance is an issue? And has anyone driven their car with this kit yet? I'm still pretty darn interested in this kit, seeing as how it seems to be the only one with enough bite when using the 4 piston front brakes. Plus having vented rotors front and rear really makes for a nice cool brake set up. So has anyone figured out what exact years/models the caliper is off of? And how about the rotor?

Great write-up, thank you for doing this! Could you measure the radius from the center of the hub to the farthest point out on the caliper, so we can measure our wheels and have an idea of if it will fit or not? I didn't realize how big the rotor, caliper, and bracket are!

This is what I am interested in as well. My gut tells me know because the bigger the tube, the lower the pressure. But I'm not sure if pressure is more important in a brake system, or if fluid volume is. Someone more knowledgeable, please chime in on this! My other gut feeling is to not mess with that if you're going for a totaly stock system. But if you're going for upgrades to the brakes (4 piston fronts, bigger master cylinder, rear disks, etc.) maybe it would be a good idea. I guess my other question for the more knowledgeable person than me is the same question but asking about the clutch hardline, would that be better to be larger if a wilwood 7/8's clutch master cylinder is used? Hope I'm not thread hi-jacking ... but it's all relevant, and I'd assume you have similar questions...

This is a pretty interesting thread. Usually most people are interested in adding negative camber. It seems to me that camber plates would solve this problem much better than adjustable lca's. I personally plan to run the techno toy LCA's front and rear to induce negative camber (around -2 degrees), but I will be using ZG flares, so that's a little different. You say you're already using camber plates, well make sure you have them set as inward as realistic first, then tell us what difference it makes. Better to try and make what you have work than throwing parts at it. You could also probably get away with a slightly thinner tire, looks like the next size down would be just fine. But either way, camber plates are going to do the trick here, because that will acctually pull the top of the strut tube, and the top of the wheel inward instead of pulling the bottom inward. Also, what offset are your wheels? That could very well be the problem, and if you're running spacers, take 'em out!!

On my '73, pretty much every connector stripped when I was removing brake parts, so I decided to replace all the hard lines. I haven't done it yet, but I will do it soon enough. What I found out is: the stock lines are 3/16", and all the stock parts take a 10mm x 1.0 connector. In my searching around, I found that pretty much the best hardline you can get is the stuff from fedhill. It's not the cheapest, but not too expensive, and can be seamlessly bent without tools. They make a really nice flaring tool too, but it costs about $300.00. For their line, a simple cheap flaring tool is fine. I am doing a bunch of brake upgrades as well, so I am taking a bit of a different approach. Also, I plan to replace all the fuel hardlines with their stuff, the stock sizes are 6mm for the fuel line that goes to the carbs/efi, and 4mm for the return line.

Well I did go check out the 914 and it was pretty darn cool, but the guy was pretty annoying, he only cared about the look of the mini, and was concerned about the scratches and dents it has. And the 914 had a couple bad synchros and the brakes felt like they definitely needed some attention and, and, and. It all added up and I decided to walk away. So I still have no money and I still have a newer expensive german car (not an old one!). Still don't know what I'm getting for christmas for the Z, as my mom said that what she ordered hasn't come in yet, and she won't tell me what it is. She's out of town for another week or so anyways so I won't know for a little while, as it's shipping to her office haha. Anyways I got a fair bit done today. Went to a co-workers house today and used his super sweet Milwaukee metal chop saw to section the strut tubes. Took all of 10 minutes, that thing cut through the tube like butter! Anyways looks like I got them cut down to the exact right length. A little too long if anything, which is better than too short, because I can always put a spacer underneath the gland nut, or under the strut insert itself. Anyways I will probably pick up some welding gas this week, and then I should be good to go to finish that aspect of the front suspension. I also pulled the whole steering column, pedal box, and brake booster out today. I will be pulling everything out of the engine bay, to strip the old paint off. I am going with the contrasting engine bay look, and have decided to paint it midnight purple with lime green and gold splatter type stuff . I know, sounds ricey, but I like the look! Plus I always felt that the engine bay is what really shows the builders personality, and well, I'm borderline insane so it works haha. Also decided on wheel color, I will be going with the hyper black with a polished lip, I think it will look awesome on an orange car. However, I have been thinking of maybe instead of orange, a sorta metallic copper kind of color. I will decide when I have money for a paint job, and I start talking to whatever paint shop I choose, and see what color choices they have. Does anyone know any good, fairly cheap paint shops in the bay area? I'm tempted to go to maaco, but haven't decided. And, finally, I decided, after reading a billion posts, that I will go with the silvermine stage 4 brake kits front and rear. This is just a vented toyota 4x4 front caliper, and a vented ford mustang gt rear caliper for those of you who aren't familiar. Should give enough bite, I hope!

Good to know that can happen, now I won't freak out when I accidentally do that haha. Haha no worries, I won't have my car running until summer probably, I can wait that long! In fact I'll probably be about ready to buy a rear brake set in march.

I want this kit! You'll have to tell me how the brake set up feels when complete, I'm going after the sam exact set up. As for your rear caliper, it looks like you do not have those bolts tightened down all the way. It may be that the caliper doesn't sit right unless it's bolted down correctly. Also the rotor doesn't look like it's really against the hub all the way (and if it is, looks like you should get some longer wheel studs). Tighten everything down to spec, and see how it looks. If that still has bad results, then my next guess would be that you got a bad bracket. But try tightening it all down then let us know! The only other thing I can think of is that you somehow have the bracket backwards, or upside down or something. See if it mounts in a different orientation better, I'm not sure if it would, but it's certainly possible. Anyways excited to see your car on the road, would really love to hear what you think about the brakes when you're done!

I wouldn't think the air dam is worth too much, or the spoiler. The spoiler is either the $159.99 msa classic as mentioned, or the $250 xenon spoiler. The air dam itself is about $270 new. You're not going to get much for them I'm sure.. But who knows, maybe I'm wrong. It's worth a try at least.