MOTORHEAD427

RoxZ

ABOVE THE REST

Our diecast contest is almost over. We were expecting at least a dozen entries, we received only 4:sad: But it`s ok for the first time. We`ll have another contest in 6 months. I`d like to thank DavyZ and Mikelly for all the help. And all the contestants, who participated. Thank you for your time. VOTING! How does it work? Unfortunately we don`t have a "poll" option here at HybridZ, so you`ll have to post your vote like a regular message. You can only vote once. Every entry has a name. ABOVE THE REST RoxZ RUBY ZF1-J Voting ends on 07/19/2007 at midnight PST. PLEASE CLICK ON THUMBNAILS TO ENLARGE PICTURES. May the best customizer win!!!! Good luck to all contestants. ERIC

Give me a couple days and I`ll post a new thread. ERIC

Time`s up! Only 4 submissions...:sad: 280zforce wigenOut-S30 Veritech-Z Chewievette Such a disappointment... But it`s ok...Maybe next time more people will participate. 4th place will get a 1/24 240Z...No need for the "most enthusiastic contestant award" this time...Everybody wins. I will post submission pictures soon in a separate thread... We will ask HybridZ members to vote for their favourite model. We will ask them to simply post a message on the new thread stating which model they like. I asked you guys to name your customs, only one of you did that... PLEASE NAME YOUR MODELS!!!!!!! Good luck to you all! ERIC

Why Air Force? What`s the difference? Here`s my favourite: 16. Get up at 4 A.M. sit in your truck start it and let it run for 4 hours before going anywhere. This is to ensure your engine is properly "lighted off." ERIC

HOW TO SIMULATE LIFE IN THE NAVY 1. Buy a dumpster, paint it gray and live in it for 6 months straight. 2. Run all of the piping and wires inside your house on the outside of the walls. 3. Pump 10 inches of nasty, crappy water into your basement, then pump it out, clean up, and paint the basement "deck gray." 4. Every couple of weeks, dress up in your best clothes and go the scummiest part of town, find the most run down, trashy bar you can, pay $10 per beer until you're hammered, then walk home in the freezing cold. 5. Perform a weekly disassembly and inspection of your lawnmower. 6. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays turn your water temperature up to 200 degrees, then on Tuesday and Thursday turn it down to 10 degrees. On Saturdays, and Sundays declare to your entire family that they used too much water during the week, so all showering is secure. 7. Raise your bed to within 6 inches of the ceiling. 8. Have your next door neighbor come over each day at 5am, and blow a whistle so loud that Helen Keller could hear it and shout "Reveille, Reveille, all hands heave out and trice up". 9. Have your mother-in-law write down everything she's going to do the following day, then have her make you stand in the back yard at 6am and read it to you. 10. Eat the raunchiest Mexican food you can find for three days straight, then lock yourself out of the bathroom for 12 hours, and hang a sign on the door that reads "Secured-contact OA division at X-3053." 11. Submit a request form to your father-in-law, asking if it's ok for you to leave your house before 3pm. 12. Invite 200 of your not-so-closest friends to come over, then board up all the windows and doors to your house for 6 months. After the 6 months is up, take down the boards, wave at your friends and family through the front window of your home...you can't leave until the next day you have duty. 13. Shower with above-mentioned friends. 14. Make your family qualify to operate all the appliances in your home (i.e. Dishwasher operator, blender technician, etc.). 15. Walk around your truck for 4 hours checking the tire pressure every 15 minutes. 16. Get up at 4 A.M. sit in your truck start it and let it run for 4 hours before going anywhere. This is to ensure your engine is properly "lighted off." 17. Empty all the garbage bins in your house, and sweep your driveway 3 times a day, whether they need it or not. (Now sweepers, start your brooms, clean sweep down fore and aft, empty all trashcans over the fantail) 18. Repaint your entire house once a month. 19. Cook all of your food blindfolded, groping for any spice and seasoning you can get your hands on. 20. Use eighteen scoops of budget coffee grounds per pot, and allow each pot to sit 5 hours before drinking. 21. Have your neighbor collect all your mail for a month, read your magazines, and randomly lose every 5th item. 22. Spend $20,000 on a satellite system for your TV, but only watch CNN and the Weather Channel. 23. Avoid watching TV with the exception of movies which are played in the middle of the night. Have the family vote on which movie to watch, and then show a different one. 24. Have your 5-year-old cousin give you a haircut with goat shears. 25. Sew back pockets to the front of your pants. 26. Spend 2 weeks in the red-light districts of Europe, and call it "world travel." 27. Attempt to spend 5 years working at McDonalds, and NOT get promoted. 28. Ensure that any promotions you do get are from stepping on the dead bodies of your co-workers. 29. Needle gun the aluminum siding on your house after your neighbors have gone to bed. 30. When your children are in bed, run into their room with a megaphone, and shout at the top of your lungs that your home is under attack, and order them to man their battle stations. ("General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations") 31. Make your family menu a week ahead of time, and do so without checking the pantry and refrigerator. 32. Post a menu on the refrigerator door informing your family that you are having steak for dinner. Then, make them wait in line for at least an hour, when they finally get to the kitchen, tell them that you are out of steak, but you have dried ham or hot dogs. Repeat daily until they don't pay attention to the menu any more, so they just ask for hot dogs. 33. When baking a cake, prop up one side of the pan while it is in the oven. Spread icing on real thick to level it off. 34. In the middle of January, place a podium at the end of your driveway. Have you family stand watches at the podium, rotating at 4-hour intervals. 35. Lock yourself and your family in your house for 6 weeks. Then tell them that at the end of the 6th week you're going to take them to Disneyland for "weekend liberty." When the end of the 6th week rolls around, inform them that Disneyland has been canceled due to the fact that they need to get ready for Engineering-certification, and that it will be another week before they can leave the house. 37. Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with a curtain. Have you wife whip open the curtain about 3 hours after you go to sleep. She should then shine a flashlight in your eyes and mumble "Sorry, wrong rack." 38. Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of your bathtub, move the shower head to chest level. When you take showers, make sure you shut off the water while you soap down. 39. When there is a thunderstorm in your area, find a wobbly rocking chair and rock as hard as you can until you become nauseous. have a supply of stale crackers in your shirt pocket. 40. Put lube oil in your humidifier and set it on high. 41. For ex-engineering types: leave the lawn mower running in your living oom eight hours a day. 42. Have the paperboy give you a haircut. 43. Once a week, blow compressed air up your chimney, making sure the wind carries the soot onto your neighbors house. Ignore his complaints. 44. Every other month buy green or red marine primer and put it in a paint sprayer. Spray it over the roof of your house onto your neighbors car. Ignore his complaints. 45. Lock wire the lug nuts on your truck. 46. Buy a trash compactor, but use it only once a week. Store the garbage on the other side of your bathtub. 47. Get up every night around midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale bread. 48. Set your alarm clock to go off at random during the night, jump up and get dressed as fast as you can making sure you button up the top button on your shirt, stuff you pants into your socks. Run out into the backyard and uncoil the garden hose. 49. Once a month, take every major appliance apart and put them back together again. 50. Install a fluorescent lamp under the coffee table, and then get under it and read books. 51. Raise the thresholds and lower the top sills of your front and back doors so that you either trip or bang your head every time you pass through one of them. 52. Every so often, throw the cat in the pool and shout "Man overboard, starboard side" Then run into the house and sweep all the pots and dishes off the counter. Yell at the wife and kids for not having the kitchen "stowed for sea." 53. Put on the headphones from your stereo set, but don't plug them in. Hang a paper cup around your neck with string. Go stand in front of your stove. Say ... to no one in particular "Stove manned and ready" Stand there for three or four hours. And say again to no one in particular "stove secured" Roll up your headphones and paper cup and place them in a box. Courtesy of Joe Falco of Joe`s Diecast Shack...Thank you Joe! ERIC

So far 2 contestants submitted pictures: wigenOut-S30 and 280zforce 2 days left!... Hurry up! ERIC davyzmikellyeric@yahoo.com

You don`t have to go through all this. If you are unable to create a white background, then take your model outside but justmake sure there isn`t too much distraction (or your real car) in the background. Here`s an example(no, it`s not a jada)This picture was taken in the afternoon in my backyard Here`s one with little light and against black background: And here`s the good news. I`m giving you all a one week extension! But that`s it, no more... Due date is now July 7th 2007 12 am (pst)

One more thing. Please do not take pictures of your model next to your real car...You can post those pictures after the contest is over. ERIC

Sure, no problem... ERIC

Dave, I know you took those pics in a hurry, it was obvious. I just used them as an example. All contestants should take their time and not hurry taking pictures. Do your best. How many of you think you can`t finish by the 30th? I can give you an extension if you need it. Let me know as soon as possible please. ERIC

Nice work, BAD pictures! There`s a lot going on in the background and that takes away from the car itself. A white background is always the best for diecast model pictures! When I took these pictures they came out yellow-ish...Although I used a lightbox. I fixed that using photoshop. If you don`t know how to use photoshop, I will take care of the light for you without altering the model itself. Here`s another example: and this one: And here`s a bad example. Angle is good but resolution is very low and the picture is blurry. Background doesn`t work well either: This one here could have been such a nice picture but the front of the car is kind of out of focus. When I took this picture, I was too close to the model and the camera did not focus on the entire model. The best thing to do is taking the picture from 2' away and zooming in.(that depends on your camera ofcourse): ERIC davyzmikellyeric@yahoo.com

4 days left... Nobody submitted anything yet... After you submit your pictures, we will display them in a separate thread as thumbnails because unfortunately we don`t have a "poll" option.(or do we?). We will then ask the community to vote for their favourite custom model in a seven day period. Contestants' names will not be displayed! Your custom model should have its own name. So please name them! If you have any questions, now is a good time to ask. Best of luck to you all and may the best customizer win! ERIC Please submit your pics here: davyzmikellyeric@yahoo.com

You`re right TravRMK. The thing is, the difference in performance before and after the webers, doesn`t feel significant. I was expecting much better performance with the webers and the new headers. What do you guys think the acceleration of a L24 240Z with 40mm triple webers and 6-1 MSA Headers should be like? Does anybody have a similar setup? Thank you for all the help and suggestions. PS: I know I probably should get L28 heads and racing cam but can`t afford those right now...

Preferred picture size: Between 800x600 pixels and 1024x768 pixels Nothing smaller, nothing larger Please do not send unnecessary/similar pictures. What do we prefer? Front three quarter view. Rear three quarter view Side view (if both sides look the same then one picture is enough) Engine Interior Trunk 1 "theme" picture with a background of your preference if you really want to. You can photoshop this picture-Not mandatory- At the most 5 pictures of details you believe are significant. This means you can send to us up to 12(twelve) pictures, 6 of which are mandatory! No photoshop alteration of mandatory pictures and detail shots but, you may use photoshop or similar software to alter the light. Due date: JUNE 30th at 12 am (pacific standard time) Prizes: First place: 4 JADA TOYS 1/24 1972 Datsun 240Z models and one, never before released one off metallic yellow JADA TOYS 1/24 1972 Datsun 240Z model sample. Also the first place trophy. Second place:3 JADA TOYS 1/24 1972 Datsun 240Z models and second place trophy Third place:2 JADA TOYS 1/24 1972 Datsun 240Z models and third place trophy The most enthusiastic contestant: 1 JADA TOYS 1/24 1972 Datsun 240Z models and a trophy. Good luck to you all. ERIC davyzmikellyeric@yahoo.com

You have about a week left... Please do your very best taking those pictures. A white background is preferred but if the background must be a part of your "theme", then that`s ok too. Light is very important ofcourse and make sure all details are visible clearly. Interior and engine details are as important as the exterior detail. One more thing. I've been using Photoshop and similar software on a daily basis and at least 6 hours a day since 1991. Please do not try and alter the way your model looks in the pictures(Not the background)...I will know and you`ll be disqualified! Best of luck to you all. Please submit your pictures to: davyzmikellyeric@yahoo.com ERIC

Thanks for all the great info. I called my mechanic and told him to get NGK`s. I don`t know if it makes any difference but, the car has the stock L24 with triple webers(40 mm) and MSA`s ceramic coated headers. I also have electronic ignition. I always warm up the car for at least 5-10 minutes in the morning before I take off. Couple weeks ago I decided to take the Z for a spin and the car didn`t start. I thought it was the battery. Sent the car to my mechanic friend who is a fellow Z owner(300ZX) and he said the problem was the sparkplugs which I got 2000 miles ago... Tips of the sparkplugs(Autolite) turned all black. Battery is alright though. Now I`ll try NGK`s and hopefully my problems will be over. Thanks again for all the help. I really appreciate it. ERIC

Thank you...

What brand of sparkplugs would you recommend for my L24 '73Z? Thanks in advance... ERIC

Looks like they do! I`m sure they carry both versions. You still have time to participate the first ever HybridZ JADA Custom diecast contest!!! Due date is June 30th! http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=121582 ERIC

Correction: Due date is June 30th....Sorry....But still, time flies!!! Until the 30th; you have to finish the body, interior, engine mods, paint and or graphics and take decent pictures. 4 weeks left. ERIC

Two weeks left people! Time flies!!! Due date is June 15 until midnight! Our e-mail is: davyzmikellyeric@yahoo.com Good luck! ERIC

Judging by the headlights, it looks like a 350Z

We placed the 510 in one of our two Nissan 5-packs in 1/64 scale. What we usually do is, testing the market with a 1/64 scale model first (if we`re not sure about the car, in this case , the 510) Depending on the sales and demand from our distributors, a 1/24 scale 510 should follow and I am all for it! Since it is a recent release, it would be still too early to talk about it. We already have all generations of Chevy Camaro in different scales because like it or not the car is an icon. I`d like to do the same with the Z. BRE 240Z coming soon. Model Kits are released usually about 3 months after the mass market release. I`m pretty sure more graphics versions of the Z will follow. Thank you very much for choosing Jada Toys! ERIC