lbhsbZ

...or whatever you want to call it. It hurts to write this...but the Z is gone. It started off as a $1 bet to build the baddest open class road race car to ever compete in the the series (calderapromotions.com), but I never made it to the race. I bought a 1973 240Z, with a blowed up 327 in it and stock everything else, gutted it, caged it, built a motor that made 550hp (conservative #) at the crank, stuck a TKO600 box behind it with a R200/4.68/Quaiffe, some 315/35/17 ®, 275/40/17(F), 13" front brakes, badass suspension, and a bunch of other trick Chit. The car got towed away tonight by its new owner. There was a tear down my cheek. This Z was definately the fastest, most powerful beast that I have ever sat in. It got rubber rolling into the loud pedal doing 120 in fourth. The only time it ever straightened out on the track was for the brief moment that I lifted between acceleration and braking. It was awesome...better than.....anything I've ever experienced. But the operating costs were more than I could handle. The car only ever made 20 laps, during which 20 gallons of 110 octane fuel were consumed along with 2 sets of tires, which translates into a $3000+ weekend, which unfortunatly, I can't afford on a regular basis. So I've decided to part ways with the machine that I invested a years worth of paycheks, blood, and sweat into....and take up a more affordable hobby. I love racing, and I miss it already. A few picture of the Z to remember it by... ....but I've still got a garage full of pieces, and I'll build a bigger badder faster one some day, when money and time permits. This will be my last post here for a while, and it was an absolute pleasure meeting and communicating with a lot of you out there in internet land. I want to say thank you for this great resource, and all the information and tips I have recieved from this site, without which I couldn't have built my car. I've taken up off roading and playing on the rocks, becuase I can have a whole day of seat time for the price of a couple gallons of pump gas. Its almost as much fun, but still doesn't fill the void......hopefully in a few years I'll have enough money saved up to build and campaign another Z for a while at the track.

Maybe I got lucky. I used some collars from BetaMotorsports and EMI camber plates to put my datsun back together for the new owner...I'm using full length struts, as the sectioned ones on the previous setup were a little short with 17" rims and big tires. I cut the perches off, and ground down the excess, leaving only the weld there. The weld acts as the stop for the collar, and its plenty secure. I just slid the collars on, with a little tape wrapped around the strut to take up the 1mm of space between the strut and collar, and they work fine. No welding required.

I've got about 3 sets. Send me an email.. lbhsbz@hotmail.com

Jon, I don't have a picture but my window net installations are easy. I run 2 horizontal pieces of 3/8 roundstock...one on top and one on bottom to retain the window net. I weld 2 tabs onto the main hoop leg and 2 tabs onto the A-pillar with hole bigger than the roundstock...1/2" works good for me. Make the sections of stok about 2 inches longer than the distance between the two top tabs and the 2 bottom tabs. Grab a couple of washers, slide them over the ends of your stock and tack weld them 1 inch from the end...do this only on one end of each piece of stock. Find a couple of springs that will fit over the stock but not through the hole in your tab. I usually use springs about 3 inches long that compress to about 1/2 inch or so. Slide the spring over the end of the stock without the washer until the end of the spring is flush with the end of the stock, and tack it. One rod goes through the top and the other goes through the bottom of the window net. Slide the end with the spring into one of the tabs and compress the spring, then line up the other end in the other tab and release it...the spring will keep the rod located between the tabs. Do the same with the top one. To get out of the car in a hurry, push the bottom rod toward the spring end and push it outward, then pull backwards..the rod will come out of the tabs, throw it over the roof and get out of the car.

In Ross's defence, everything ordered in the automotive aftermarket industry 1 week before, the week during, or the week after SEMA is generally delayed. Thats just the way it is. My usual spring vendor (H&R) who can get me stuff next day generally, took 2 weeks to ship my springs...I ordered them about 3 days before SEMA. Everyone in the automotive aftermarket is running on a skeleton crew the week of SEMA, and is generally slammed the week before and recovering the week after. (except our company of course, because I stay home to hold down the fort). Now that that has been said.... I have made 2 relatively large purchases from Ross in the last year, and while his product is exceptional, his customer service is lacking. (I'm not talking trash, look at this as constructive critisim) Communication is rare. Purchasing through the website is guesswork...because both times I did it, there was no checkout that actually prompted me to pay him...I just got an email a few days later, which looked liked either an invoice or a receipt. I saw the amount and sent paypal to whatever address the email came from, and didn't hear anything from ross for 2 weeks. No "we received your payment", no "we will ship your parts on XX day"....nothing....until a little over 2 weeks later, I got a phone call from someone associated with Ross who let me in on the shipping arrangements. As someone who has spent his whole professional life in the automotive aftermarket, I can tell you that the product you sell doesn't mean jack. Customer service is what wins the hearts of customers. Regardless of whether or not its warranted, everyone involved in any situation should be on the same page as to what is happening, and if they are, everyone will be happy. I always found myself in the dark as to what was happening with my transactions with Ross. I have also read more than a few threads like this one....wondering what happened regarding the order that they placed X weeks ago. I know Ross claims to have emailed people back several times, and the customers never received the emails. I have NO spam filter on my email, it just dumps the questionable stuff into a "junk" box, which I go through every day to make sure nothing important slipped through....never an email from Ross. Oh, and I had no problem receiving the one telling me how much I owed him, so why should there be a problem with me recieving the others......something doesn't jive here. Ross makes (sells) some of the best Z car parts out there, and as Z car owners, our selection is rather limited, but if communication were ramped up a bit, Modern Motorsports would be "that awesome vendor with kickass parts" instead of "The guy you can't get ahold of that will send you kickass parts at his convenience".

It's a '73, so its smog exempt. The car is currently registered, insured, and street legal so long as the cops are wearing ear plugs LOL. Its just too expensive (for me) to operate as a track car.

Ok

This one: I started building this car a year ago for a circuit down in Mexico, which over the last year has declined rapidly. We are losing tracks and partipants fast. 2 years ago there were 5 competitors in OPEN class, now there's 2, and 1 just dropped out. The car isn't really street legal, so whats the point. I've been thinking about getting myself a little solid axle Toyo 4x4 and going out to play on the trails on the weekends...seems like much more bang for the buck than road racing, and better scenery too. Since everything on the car is Chevy gear, I'd like to post the list here...if its OK with the administrators. Lemme know.

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=123654&page=2 Post number 28

Thanks for the info.... If you read through the FAQ that I wrote up, 8 washers, even if they were flat, would not be sufficiently retained by the 2 little punkass retainers....the 2 center washers are retained only by their own springiness, and when assembled, all of the 8 washers are completely compressed flat. I think this is the design flaw with the OBX. If the washers are assembled )))(((, they will stay put. If the washers are assembled ))))((((, the 2 center ones will fall out, which is what happened in my case. We reassembled TonyD's diff (my old OBX) using 6 washers, in the same manner as the quaife stack, but I haven't had any feedback as to weather or not it worked.

I picked up the TKO600 for about $2000 IIRC

Only if you want it to stay polished

Post a picture of the deck of your block and a picture of the gasket...I've got a stack of gaskets at the house for earlier motors, I'll compare them when I get home.

I'm not sure the headgaskets were the problem....the reason for the small holes in the headgaskets towards the front and the larger holes towards the back, is to force the water to go to the rear of the engine....if the front cooling holes in the headgasket are large and provide no restriction, then water will go straight through the front ports into the intake manifold and back through the upper radiator hose.....without any coolant flow through the rear of engine..... When you reassemble everything, get a temp sensor in the rear of one of one of the heads and monitor that temperature vs the coolant temp at the thermostat....I think you will cook the rear cylinders.

I'm running the TKO600 and couldn't be happier with it. I don't think I'll ever be able to break it, it shifts good and has a pretty stout torque rating. I don't see myself ever using 5th gear though...even with a 4.68 final drive in the car.

Why don't you try the Astro bellhousing, seeing as how its the one that goes with that gearbox and clutch....

Unpossible. when the master cylinder pistons are fully returned to their "unapplied" position, there is a clear path from the hydraulic system to the reservior for any residual pressure to go. Thats why you can squeeze your pistons back into the calipers relatively easily without opening the bleeder valves. Air cannot cause brakes to drag. Now, back to the original problem. Do the brakes drag when they are hot or cold or both? Here's how you diagnose it. First, duplicate the problem...make the brakes drag, jack up one end of the car so you can spin the wheels by hand....but make sure you can't spin them by hand to confirm that they're dragging. Then, unbolt the master cylinder from the booster....and pull it away about 1/2". Now try to spin a wheel again....if it spins, the booster pushrod is holding the master cylinder pistons slightly depressed into the bore of the cylinder, not allowing the lip seals to uncover the ports leading back to the reservior. Either adjust the pushrod or figure out what caused it to get longer in the first place (brake light switch adjustment, sticking pedal linkage, etc....) If a wheel does not release when you unbolt the master cylinder from the booster, loosen the lines at the master. If the brakes release, get a new master....if not, read on. Pick a front corner and go down to where the hardline connects to the soft brake hose (not at the caliper, the other end). Loosen this connection. If the wheel releases, then you know that the restriction lies somewhere between the master and the connection that you just loosened....which would be the prop valve(s). Replace the prop valve. If it doesn't release when you loosened the line connection, read on. Now go down to the bleeder on that caliper....loosen it. If the wheel releases, you have bad brake hoses. You can take them off and try to blow through them to confirm that they are a restriction. Over time, and if subjected to fluid contamination, rubber expands, which pinches the hole shut in the hose, causing it to hold a certain amount of pressure in the caliper/wheel cylinders. If the wheel does not release when you open the bleeder, there is a mechanical problem with the caliper/wheel cylinder/shoe assembly, which should be easy enough to figure out once you've pinpointed the problem using the above procedure. Good luck

I didn't read any of the other posts, so I apologize if this has already been mentioned. I builts my cage on little boxes that are about 3 or 4 inches of the floor of the car, I fitted and built the boxes, then tacked them in, and fitted and tacked in the cage onto the boxes. Then I knocked the boxes out. This allowed me quite a bit of movement to get to those hard to reach welds on top. Once the tops were all welded, I tacked the boxes back in place and final welded everything. No holes were cut in anything.

The fitting is a 10x1mm inverted flare. Toyota uses a short section of hard line that screws directly into the caliper, and then the soft hose connects to that. You can get a 10x1 inverted to 3/8-24 male/male adaptor to screw into the caliper that will enable you to use some universal russel brake lines, or you can carefully machine or file the surface of the hole on the caliper and use a 10x1 banjo bolt and a banjo style hose.

Have either of you 2 with the hard pedal problem checked for booster function using the method I described in my first post?

I don't think these are street tires at all....they are STICKY. I've got a set on the V8Z and they amazed me at the level of grip they produce, and also at how quick they get sticky.

And here I was thinking you were talking about tire clearance....like you managed to fit a 325 under the rear fender instead of the 315s that I have now. Dammit

All that will confirm is that the booster is not working, not why its not working. Another thing you can do is pull another car up next to it and run a hose from the other manifold to the booster on your Z...then try the brake pedal. The proper way to diagnose it would be get a vacuum gauge and confirm at least 18"/hg at the booster vacuum hose. If there is not 18"/hg of vacuum, fix that first, then go from there.

I'm using a vacuum pump from a mid '80s chevy celebrity....they are mounted right below the battery tray with Torx bolts. The automatically turn on at 15"/hg and shut off at 23"/hg.

I've got fire extinguishers everywhere. I'm accident prone, so I try to eliminate the possibilities of anything bad happening. I've never needed to use them except for once, when I was welding a hole in a transmission case. ::good story:: I cleaned the area very well with brake cleaner and a wire brush, then wiped down everything with a clean white rag. Then I started to weld. Some residual brake cleaner on another part of the case caught fire, which of course spread across my workbench to the brake cleaner soaked rag I had sitting about 5 feet away. I grabbed the flaming rag real quick and pitched it out of the garage.....it of course landed directly underneith my new truck....So now I still got a work bench which is on fire, and a flaming rag sitting underneith the plastic gas tank on my new truck....I dove under the truck and threw the rag in the planter, then ran back in the garage and hit the workbench with the halon. The neighbors were laughing, and so was the dude who owned the trans case. I imagine I looked like quite the idiot during all of this, but the house is still standing. I always keep at least 4 or 5 extinguishers in the garage, and one in each car, 2 in the kitchen, and there are probably more somewhere too.