Phantom

Actually this all started from me talking with a guy in this area that is a custom head builder so I had no plans for Patriot or even TEA's at this point.

Here comes the mantra - search & read, search & read. For starters - you're obviously building a 1/4 mile car. If you want a winner forget the idea of a manual transmission and plan for an automatic. Also, an NA LS1 properly set up with a 175-200 shot can put over 700 HP to the rear wheels. You better start planning for what you want after the transmission too. Have you looked at the NHRA equipment rules?

Fairly healthy difference in the LT1 & LS1 then. Mine dyno'd at 90% plus of peak torque from 1,700 to 5,500 RPM. With the 3.70 gearing I can run at 40 MPH and 1,000 rpm all day as long as I don't want to get in a hurry - it's a long way from 6th to 2nd. Generally, at speeds from 30 to 50, I run in 5th so I can have some accelleration without down shifting and keep the engine in the 1,100 to 2,000 RPM range. I've gone through the 3.36 vs 3.54 vs 3.70 thought process more times than I want to think about it. Bottom line is that I can make up for deficiencies the 3.70 creates in first gear with driving technique but not with deficiencies the 3.36 has in 2nd and up. It's all about the torque put to the rear wheels and the 3.70 has the advantage once the car is in 2nd. I also don't think that the lesser rotational frictional losses running a 3.36 at highway speeds versus a 3.70 will even be noticed with the amount of aerodynamic drag these cars have, so I doubt if you'd even notice a difference in highway MPG.

Yeah, I've got a pair of 6 1/2" component speakers (SR-17LS) in custom enclosures mounted in the front bottom corner of my doors with 1" soft dome tweeters mounted on my 'A' pillars. The original 4" speakers in the side panels have been replace with 5 1/4" (SPS-1304) and there's a 10" subwoofer (SRD-1042) in a custom, ported, enclosure in the back behind the drivers side fender well. The amp, an MRV-F545, is a 4-way bridged to a 3-way so 250 watts feeds the front speakers and 250 feeds the subwoofer. The head unit is an MP3, Ipod, Sirius capable unit (CDA-9851) and it's supported by an MP3 capable 6-disk CD changer (CHA-5634) in the face of the rear deck behind the passenger seat. In the well behind the drivers seat is a 1 farad Rockford Fosgate capacitor to smooth it all out. Rock on!!

Dale, I'm the prototype for the John's cars stuff so I've got 1 1/2" primaries into 2 1/2" collectors to full 2 1/2" duals to the rear with an 'X' pipe. If I change out headers now I'll be pushing the cost of this up another 50-70% or more. Educate me - what is the advantage of 5.3 heads? Are they just better in stock form so I could just get stock heads & coil packs or what? Obviously the affect the CR. What does it go up to? The LS1 is at 10.5:1 now which is getting up there for pump gas. I have visions of raiding under the hood of my 2002 Suburban. I can tell from what y'all have said that I'll be wanting a cam that has a 224/224 duration with .588 lift & 114 LSA.

On another note - GR8White - I notice your first two posts were about a Ford 302 conversion - are you now leaning toward the LS1?

With a 3.70:1 LSD I generally start out in 2nd, go to 3rd and then to 5th - unless I'm in a really big hurry. I've logged enough runs on the track, though, to know that 1st is very useful in obtaining maximum accelleration. It also gives you an opportunity to really learn how to drive the car rather than just hammer the throttle down to the floor. Then again, if you do hammer it down you get to practice your yaw control skills - and then a few moments later your officer avoidance skills - and then a bit later your lame excuse skills. Lotsa skills development driving an LS1 Z.

Mike, No problem waiting. My wife has other plans for my money right now. I'd really like to see your dyno results! Betting you'll be upwards of 450 HP & 400 lb- ft of torque. What I'm really interested to see is what it's like on the bottom end - down between 1,500 & 2,000 rpm because that is cruise rpm for my car. No way mine can do as well because I won't have long-tubes or 3" exhaust but it will be indicative and the low end should be very close.

I've got two years and 18,000 miles of daily driving on my LS1/T56 combo and I love it.I second everything Qwik240Z has to say. If you're anyshere near the DFW area PM me and maybe we can hook up so you can get a look at my conversion.

Mike, Not sure about 112 or 114. What are the pro's & con's? Actually I'm looking at spending an extra $150 and getting a set of '99 or newer heads and departing the peripheral bolt down pattern for the newer style. I don't think the '98 head has any advantage over the newer ones - only disadvantages. That could also drop my down time to a day beacuse it would essentially just be a parts swap.

Zack. My wifes 300ZX is Prissy. I've named all my cars except the Suburban although I do refer to it as the "Burpan"

I've been talking with a guy on LS1tech.com and have been told some interesting things. First was that evidently the '98 motors have stronger connecting rods, crank and lower end bolts than the later models? I haven't been able to verify that but thought it was interesting. On to the real news. We're talking about going to an LS6 intake, porting my heads, installing a better set of springs & valves and a 224/228 duration cam with about .580 lift. Evidently other LS1's he's done this on have dyno'd around 430 RWHP and 390 lb-ft of torque. It will also allow me to up my rev limiter to 6,500 and get a bit more use out of my existing gears. What do you guys think? Does this sound reasonable based on your experience? At this point it's about $1,500 parts & labor to do all this which sounds pretty reasonable to me. The worst part is that my car will be down about a month.

To answer your original question - 90% plus of the Gen 1 clocks don't work.

1977 280Z Coupe purchased in March of 1992 from the second owner with 101,000 miles on it. Car was original except for wheels, rear hatch louver, and a front spoiler. It was white with a brown interior. I drove the car as purchased for 5 years and 50,000 miles and then started the long upgrade project. I have driven the car 18,000 miles since the drive train conversion and it now has 222,000 miles. BODY: Removed the hatch louver. Added the Motorsport Auto Aero II 4-piece ground effects kit with a conventional hatch mount 1-piece spoiler. Added the Motorsport Auto Sentra window mount rear-view mirror kit. Tinted the windows and painted the car a 1997 Cadillac Eldorado Pearl Red with a white racing stripe. The grill has been chromed. INTERIOR: Converted the interior to black and red Katzkin leather with a custom charcoal & red carpet. It has a leather headliner, sun visors, ‘A’ pillar covers, door panels, seats, strut tower covers, and face of the rear deck. The only vinyl fabric is in the spare tire well area where it has been padded and fully covered in black vinyl. The seats have a 290 style ‘Z’ embroidered in red just below the head rests. It has an original, uncracked dash with all the original gauges with the speedometer being driven by a CableX unit.. It also has an Autopower 4-point roll bar that has been coated in black bed-liner material. The ash tray has been chrome plated and the interior coated in bed liner material. The AC system has the stock evaporator, condenser & expansion valve with a special compressor and drier. Along with foamed body panels, new seals throughout, and sound deadening and absorbing material it is now good to 100 degrees outside. SOUND SYSTEM: It is a full Alpine system. It consists of a CDA-9851 head unit that is MP3, Ipod & Sirius capable, a CHA-5634 MP3 capable 6-dsik CD changer, an MRV-F545 500 watt RMS 4-channel amplifier with a Rockford Fosgate 1 farad capacitor, SR-17LS 6 ½†component speakers in custom enclosures on the lower front door panels with 1†soft dome tweeters mounted in the ‘A’ pillars, SPS-1304 5 ¼†speakers mounted in the side panels where the original 4†speakers were mounted, and an SWR-1042 10†subwoofer in a custom, ported, enclosure behind the driver’s side rear fender well. SUSPENSION: Stock sway bars, Nissan European specification springs, KYB gas struts, urethane bushings throughout and three point strut tower braces front and rear. BRAKES: 1981 280ZX master cylinder, Willwood forged Superlite calipers on 12.2†vented rotors in the front, 240SX calipers on 11.4†300ZX solid rotors in the rear, and an adjustable proportioning valve. DRIVETRAIN: The car is the prototype for the Johns Cars LS1 conversion kit. It has a 1998 Camaro LS1 with K&N intake, 1 ½†headers into 2 ½†collectors that continue through an ‘X’ pipe and true 2 ½†duals to a single Magnaflow muffler in the stock location in the rear. The transmission is a 1999 T56 with a Hurst billet shifter that is connected via a custom driveshaft and modified ‘torque tube†(in lieu of a transverse mount) to a 1987 turbo 300ZX 3.70:1 LSD R200. The halfshafts have Spice ‘Brute Force’ universals and it all rides on Center Line 16x7†Trident II wheels with Kumho 215/55-16 Ecsta Supra 712 tires. Cooling is accomplished with the original radiator recored to four rows and the Camaro dual electric fans & shroud.

Dale, The stereo is a 500 Watt RMS, 7-speaker, Alpine system. I'm working on the bigger cam & heads but they won't overpower this radio!

Look at what's down there on both sides. It was totally out of the question in my car. ON the drivers side it would have covered either the stock ECu or the AutoX speedometer dirve and the left foot rest and on the passenger side would have covered the fuse panel.

This is my second exposure to an auto scam. The first was on ebay when I came across a 2-yr old Lexus SC430 advertised for $19,000. It was easily a $45K car. Same basic deal. What they want you to do is wire money to a "third party" who will use that to identify your bank account and run some siginifcant identity theft on you. This is commonly referred to as a "419 Scam". The term refers to the area code - 419 - of Nigeria where this type scam originated.

Look at my photo album. My 6 1/2" component speakers ahve been molded in and I'll tell you know that this is not a simple issue. First you have to correctly design the clip mounts on the back to attach it to the door, ensure that the speakers will clear the arc of the window crank, that a higher up speaker doesn't get involved with the top of the dash and - on the drivers side - you have to clear the hood release lever. Lot's of things to consider here. Oh yeah - and you'll need to allow room for whatever fabric, sound deadening material yu may want to cover it with.

Go to www.zcarparts.com and look at what they have. I know they carry an auto power 4-point roll bar that bolts to the rear fender wells which is sufficient for the occaisional week-end warrior stuff until you go full wheel to wheel in SCCA or under 11 seconds on the 1/4 mile track.

From: Cristine Mapucii Save Address ReminderTo: zedshed@att.netSubject: Re: Owner 57063162: AutoTrader.com: Vehicle Lead 2003 Infiniti G35Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 14:43:12 +0000 [View Source] Hello, First thank you for your email regarding my car. The car is in a perfect condition, the milage is accurate, no scratches, no damages, no hidden defects.Kept it in a warm garage. My boyfriend is devastated that we have to sell it but we have to pay too much money for register it here,so we decide to sell it. My company have relations in States and I worked there for 2 years. I has the oportunity to buyit from there and bring it with me when I come back.The car was buyed from US, so it is US standards,so stay cool it´s perfect compatibile to your standards and you will don´t have to pay more duty taxes on it. And this is an impediment for me to sell it here caus,first, we have a different standards and second will be very expensive for me to register it here.I have to pay an very expensive duty taxes.The price for this car is $7,000.00 USD.The car it is still register in States.What other info would you like on it? It will be shipped from London,United Kingdom and i will pay the shipping and insurance charges.I will do the arrangements for shipping from here.The original receipt and all remainded warranty information packet with enrollment number is included for you. If necessary ever I will assist you in getting warranty help; most people just dump it on you with a useless warranty. The payment will be done via secure pay which means that the third party will keep the money until you receive and inspect the car. You have 10 days to inspect the car.I will wait for your email to let me know if you are interested in knowing more details about the purchase. Best Regards Enjoy the email. It was fun for me.

I ws looking at Auto Trader the other day and came across a 2003 G35 Coupe, 6-spd with about 19,000 miles for, get this, $7,000. At that point I knew something was very wrong because the pictures showed a perfect car. I fired an email to the owner asking for more details and got the standard pitch about it no longer being in the country, could be inspected by a third party, they'd handle all the shipping, car is in perfect condition - yada - yada - yada. I sent them a "busted" email and reported them to Auto Trader. What amazes me is that people are still trying this scam. It's almost a game now to track them down and bust them.

Yeah - sort of - 'cept I don't intend to follow his path.

As a whole the folks in this country seem to be very goal oriented. The problem is, in life, the end goal is death. To make it all worth while we have to enjoy the ride there, not the destination. It's a very difficult concept to actually realize. Understanding it is the first, difficult step, but then actually putting it into action is nearly impossible for many people. I made a decision years ago that placed my family above my job and many other things. It has cost me professionally and personally in the many "things" that I don't have. What I do have, however, is a wife of nearly 33 years that still loves me dearly and two grown, college educated sons, one of whom is married and now has a son of his own. I wouldn't change a thing.

Had the opportunity today to surprise my wife with a call for us to meet for lunch - something my schedule rarely allows. We hooked up at a local resaurant - even ended up parked next to each other - and had a pleasant unrushed meal together. On the way back to work I was cruising along in 5th at about 40 mph, window rolled down on a beautiful clear 75 degree day, with some relaxing tunes playing on the Alpine stereo system and realized it was just one of those good moments that occurrs too seldom in my busy life.

Or buy one that already has it! Windows down at 80 mph is fine when it's 85 out but, pardon the pun, not too cool when it's 105 - then it's more like a blast furnace!