jt1

I absolutely love mine. It has all the things that made the Z's such great little cars to start with, plus a power to weight ratio better than a Viper. How does it get better than that?

I've got a 3 flue copper radiator for sale in the parts section, with mounts to bolt right in. Excellent condition, works great. I can email some pics if your interested.

I've got 250's all the way around on mine, but they are 10"'s. The ride is tight but not teeth chipping. I agree with TZ, to use 8" springs I think you need to be at about 300# to keep from bottoming out. Check Pete Paraska's page out, I think he is using 8" 300# springs.

Terry, what kind of master cly did you use? Is there a nissan one that works well or did you go with something like a Tilton? Thanks for the help. John

Anyone know the bore dia. of the 240Z clutch master cylinder? I'm thinking of a hydraulic throwout brg and trying to determine if the Datsun MC will move enough fluid to operate the throwout brg. Thanks. John

Thanks John, I hadn't considered melting point being a problem. It would be a complete bummer to fab up a system and it melt and fall off. Heads and pistons are AL though and they do fine. Maybe because they are cooled by the intake charge? Anyway, I'll give it some more thought. I've got some grass burners laying around from my dirt track days, maybe I'll try them on the Z. John

All I can say for sure is the Hookers work good on the TrickFlows. (hehehe!) I haven't seen any Canfields so don't know about the plug angles. You might contact TrickFlow and Canfield and inquire about the respective angles. I've also heard the Sanderson's are very quality pieces, like Two40 says, but I haven't seen any of them myself.

Everytime I pull the exhaust off my car I'm amazed at how much it weighs. I haven't weighed it but I'd guess it at 50-60 lbs. It's dual 2 1/4 into a single 3 incher. It's got me thinking about an aluminum system. Lighter, no rust. Would the exhaust gases corrode the AL? Is their a source of AL tubing and bends? Does anyone have any experience doing this?

Which heads do you have? The angle of the plugs vary from brand to brand. I've got Hooker block huggers, which work fine with my Trick Flow heads. They won't fit on the Chevy 292 heads I have on a different motor. Loks like the TF's are angled about 15 -20 deg and the chevy's about 30-35 deg, enough that the tubes hit the spark plugs on the chevy's. So I guess it varies.

You know, it didn't suprised me a bit that Pete used some aircraft grade:titanium:scandium:unobtainium bolts in his drive shaft. I just wish I had thought of it. I agree a bolt with an unthreaded shank just long enough to pass thru the two flanges, with a hardened washer, would be an ideal solution. I was faced with the choice of fully threaded 1" bolts or 1 1/2" bolts with an approx 5/8" unthreaded shank, too long for the nut to tighten. So I threaded the shank enough for the nuts to tighten. I also agree rolled threads produce less stress raisers than cut threads. Until we locate the perfect bolt for this (maybe Pete has) I would rather have an unthreaded portion between the flanges, even with some cut threads, than a fully threaded bolt. If a shear failure occurs, it's going to be along the plane between the two flanges. The unthreaded shank will provide more shear strenght than the threaded part. This is a single shear application, not double, but I don't think it makes any difference. If anybody finds that perfect bolt, please let me know. I'd like to have a couple of sets. John

Yeah, I'm going to be there. White 73 240, pulling it with a red Dodge pickup. Let's try to meet up; What will you be driving? Back on the brake deal, it's a real good idea to completely change the fluid if you haven't done it in a while, say a couple of months. As you know, kershaw is very hard on brakes. One other reason I like the Valvoline is at 4.99 a quart it doesn't break the bank. I usually change it before every event. John

Grade 8 bolts are the way to go, with self locking nuts. On my car I got some longer ones and cut them off to lenght. This allows the unthreaded shank at the top of the bolt to go almost all the way thru the two flanges for more strenght. If the threaded portion is at the shear plane between the flanges, it's not as strong as the unthreaded shank. I cut the longer bolts to lenght, then used a die to thread the shank to just inside the flange so the nuts would tighten all the way up. IMO this is stronger than using the shorter bolts. If you can't find the grade 8's at an auto parts, try a heavy truck or tractor repair shop, or an industrial supply house. Hope this helps. John

I have been using the Valvoline Synpower Dot 4 Synthetic for street and HPDE's with good results. It is 343/502 boiling points and I've had no problems at all. My car has the Arizona Z Wilwood conversion w/ Performance Friction pads. I see you're from Durham; are you coming to the Tri-Z HPDE at Kershaw next weekend?

What a great link. I learned a ton there. Thanks Greimann, Grumpy, and HybridZ. Zgad, when I had a Z with stock rotors, I let a tire shop hammer a set of wheels on with air wrenches and it definetly warped the rotors. Since then I've always used a torque wrench. John

Took the Z to a HPDE this weekend. I had just installed new pads all the way around, Performance Friction 01's up front, 97's on the rear. I had the rotors turned lightly just to clean them up before installing the new pads. My car has the Arizona Z Wilwood conversion. Saturday everything was great. Good brakes, no fade, no problem. The first run Sunday was fine, but on the second run, the brakes were great cold, but as they warmed up the front rotors acted like they were warped. The steering wheel vibrated pretty badly when the brakes were applied, enough that I considered stopping. I assumed I had warped a rotor- BUT as the brakes came up to full temp, the vibration became barely noticable. Slight vibration, but not much. Visual inspection after the run revealed everything looking OK, but there was a "blue line" about 1/4 - 3/8" in toward the hat from the wear mark the pad leaves on the rotors. I have never seen this before. The same pattern repeated itself on the third and forth runs. Will turning the rotors be OK or do I need new ones? Are the new pads putting more heat into the rotors than they can dissipate? What do I need to do to prevent this in the future? Different compound pads? Why does the vibration come in and go away as the rotors heat up? Thanks for the help, this has me puzzled. John

Mike C is on the money. If it's a standard bore that looks like it will clean up at 30, I'd say it is defintely worth it. Heck, around here a standard 4 bolt block will bring 4-500 bucks.

WOW. WOW. That is a very nicely done car. Julian is your day job working for a F1 team?

I think I have an idea of what Bob is up to..... and I'm also pretty sure he has completely lost it this time.

I've got a set of the early Twisted wedge heads on my car. I've always been pleased with the performance, but I had to replace the cast iron valve guides with bronze ones after the cast ones wore quickly. It's a little work to get the valve geometry right, had to use different lenght pushrods on the intake and exhaust, and spent a lot of time playing with the lenghts of the pushrods. Comp makes a special roller rocker for the TW heads in their pro magnum line.

The 0.156 is in the gleason itself. Holding the ring gear fixed eliminates the backlash from consideration. If the pinion was held fixed and the ring gear allowed to move, then the backlash would be additive. This may be perfectly acceptable, I don't know. Visual inspection of the worm gears in the diff shows very little wear. The teeth are shiny in the contact areas, and you can still see toolmarks even in the contact area. There is some visible movement in the worm gear pinion shafts where they fit into the carrier. John

To quantify the amount of movement, with the ring gear and one stub fixed, the opposite stub moves 0.156" measured on the stud in the flange. The only experience I have with these is running one illegally in a circle track car. Nascar caught us before wear became an issue. It worked great for a while. Either Gleason or Torsen started building these, then they merged or one bought out the other, IIRC. Been a while on that. John

I agree with MikeC, if you're on a budget go with a 350, esp if you already have a block. I have built several 406's over the years, and 400 blocks are getting hard to find and pricey. If you stick with a stock crank, it's cast, you could find a steel 350 crank pretty easily. The worst part is the stock 400 rods. They have a large notch into the big end where the bolt head sits which weakens them considerably. IMO any 406 should have 350 rods, which means going with the higher priced pistons. The 400 cast crank is in thin air above 6K rpm (don't ask how I know this, it wasn't pretty). Also you have to deal with the external balance issue's of the 400, weighted flexplate and big damper. Without upgrading your topend, more cubes just lowers your torque and hp peak, not necessarily gives you more power. So, I think you would be better off to spend what you can on your 350 and leave the 400 till you can do it with a forged crank and good rods and pistons. John

I've got the 24 x 19 griffin with 1.25 flue's. It cools the car great. I had to have the cap cut off and a plug tig'd in to position it like I wanted. The griffin cools nicely even when open tracking the car, but the Fluidyne's are nicer looking IMO.

The OD of my coilovers w/ Eibach springs is 3 1/2". Don't know what the stock ones are.

I'm getting ready to buy new pads for my car for use in open track HPDE events. Currently my car has the arizonaz front brakes with 12" vented rotors, wilwood superlight calipers, and hawk blue pads. The rear brakes are the stock drums, but I am installing the arizona z rear kit with 12" solid rotors and dynalite calipers. The rear kit came with the car when I bought it, the previous owner had not installed it. The pads with the rear kit are hawk cold stoppers, which I understand is a street pad. I'm considering using hawk blacks on both ends. The blues work great once they get some heat, but they squeal like a stuck banshee ALL the time. I've turned the rotors, sanded the pads, beveled the edges, put goop on them, and they still drive me nuts. Anyone got experience with the blacks, or other rccomendations? these will be track only, mostly at CMP, which I'm told is pretty hard on brakes. Thanks.