jt1

What's a Hood Pop? Popping a dent in the hood with the owner's head??? John

The number stamped on the choke tower is the one used for identification and ordering parts, kits, etc. John

Sounding great, Tdab. When will we see you down at CMP? John

The 3970010 is a desirable high nickel block as stated above. Most, but not all, are 4 bolt main, be sure to check. Zfan, what do you mean by two piece? Two piece rear main seal? John

What katman said. I will add an email of dpracing@concentric.net. I've also got DP's rear disc kit. A wilwood proportioning valve provide's balance. Dynalite single calipers on the rear and that's a lot of piston area compared to the front, the porp valve is almost maxed out reducing pressure to the rear. LOTS of stopping power, it's almost impossible to get any brake fade with street tires at an OT event. PF pads, 01 up front and 97 rear. Not sure about pricing. The previous owner of my car bought the brakes. John

Usually (but not always!) a deccel whine is the pinion brgs starting to give up. If you're going to rebuild your current rear, do it pretty soon. If your going to change it out, it will run a good while. John

The Trick Flow twisted wedge heads require odd lenght pushrods to get the valvetrain geometry right. I learned that the hard way. I don't know if that's still the case or not with the newer heads. Why don't you call Trick Flow, everytime I've called them they've been very helpful. John

The way that head popped the concrete, he's lucky if he doesn't have any long term injuries, like being in a coma for the rest of his life. Darwinism at it's best. John

I run a Quaife and don't have any experience with the Power Brute. For road race/open track/general street applications, the Quaife is awesome, and that's the best price I've seen. I've never heard anyone dissatisfied with a Quaife other than paying for it. Board member Ross Corrigan has a good deal on installing a quaife into your rear. John

Looks like a good plan to me except for the rods. Look at a stock 400 rod and there is a big notch for the bolt head, much bigger than 5.7 350 rods. This weakens a 400 rod a lot compared to the 350 rod. I'd use a set of 350 rods, they will have to be clearanced a little, but it's not a big deal. Pistons for the 400 w/350 rods are readily available and no more expensive than reg 400 pistons. John

That is pretty interesting. It's hard for me to believe the Vortec was that good and the AFR was that bad. I would probably have to see that myself to be firmly convinced. Maybe extensive mods to the Vortec and something wrong with the AFR, it could happen. If that guy runs a 421 dirt modified, I would think he had his heads sorted out better than that. John

You can build an air box around the carb & air cleaner with a cowl inlet or scoop. Or if you don't want to cut a hole in the hood there's these people: http://www.ramairbox.com/ Inlet air temp has a huge effect on performance. Anyone who doesn't think so needs to get in a small plane, put it in a climb, and pull the carb heat on. There's a large dropoff in power. John

See the video at: http://www.godspeedextreme.com/Kyle.MPG

Yes.

Britt, it's a Design Products Racing kit that adapts a 12.2x1.25 rotor and the Superlite caliper to the Z spindle. The rotor and caliper are short track stock car stuff made by Wilwood. The old rotors were getting pretty thin and had heat cracked badly, so I replaced them for an upcoming track day at VIR. I'm pumped about getting close to another track day, been getting DT's. John

Just got done with new rotors, repack wheel brgs, new seals, and flushing the brake fluid! Track Day coming BABY!!!!!!!

Thanks for the tip, thurem. I bought a set. Nicole is great. John

Hey I just bought a set of 17 x 8's. Nicole sounds pretty hot.....couldn't talk her into coming to NC though. Thanks to Nicole and Centerline for helping us wheel-challenged Z-car guys out and offering to make a special run. John

Now if she was just leaning on a Z holding that AR........ Nah, that would be too good. If you're into guns and reloading, I know you've heard of Dillion Precision. Check out the posters at http://dillonprecision.com/template/p.cfm?maj=43&min=1&dyn=1& John

All the slack in a rear isn't necessarily backlash. Backlash is the amount of free play between the ring and pinion. Wear in the spider gears, carrier and stub shaft splines, and bearings contribute to the total slack. If it's just the backlash and all the other stuff is OK, the carrier can be shimmed over to correct the backlash, and it's not a huge job. SOMETIMES this causes a whine in the rearend no matter how well it's done. The gears are already worn and changing their contact areas make them noisy. You can pull the rear and take off the back cover to inspect it. If nothing looks like it has much wear, it might be a good candidate to reshim, especially if it's a LSD or hard to find ratio. If it looks a little rough and it's a 3:54 open diff, I'd do like Denny says and find another, they are fairly plentiful. John

CE/ME here...but only a little design work, I mostly build things. The best part about being a contractor is having cool stuff to play with. Mainly I like anything that's loud and goes fast. John

Mudge, you'll love the Quaife if you do many track events. I couldn't believe the difference it made in my car, no more lighting up the inside tire, much easier to use the throttle to rotate the car, and very smooth putting power down out of the turns. Pricey but worth it. A little over $1200 is the cheapest I've seen them, and Ross's complete setup deal is pretty good. John

WOW! What an idiot. Is there a little smoke starting to come off his right bootheel, or am I seeing things?

Sounds about right to me, I'd spend a few extra bucks and go with some good forged flat tops instead of the hypers, and shoot for 10.5:1 compression. You'll need that much to make those numbers IMO. John

I love these suspension dynamics threads. I always learn something. At first glance, I thought johnc was talking about the strut pivoting vs. the spindle; After more consideration & reading the above threads, I realize(!) he meant the strut/spindle pivoting vs. the LCA, which makes perfect sense. Thanks for the great explanations, Tim & John. And thanks to Bob for kicking off a great discussion. John