Zetsaz

Was looking for an old post from you because of the Panasport wheels you had and remembered this great thread. Any good progress since last year?

There's a reason I defer to "experts" for most things. You can be relatively knowledgeable about a lot of things, but no one can have truly extensive knowledge of more than just a few things. True expertise and experience just requires so much time and commitment. What engine is that?? Very exciting! After many roadtrips in my car and realizing it is fully a street car, I've been brainstorming going fully the opposite direction as you and focusing on making it more comfortable, even if it means moderate sacrifices to handling.

After a 2000+mile trip this summer in the Z I'm inclined to agree with this. Part if me is tempted to go back to stock arms on rubber, are at least all poly instead of some of the heim joints on my T3 parts. The performance benefit of some aftermarket arms is marginal at best. That said, the tension rods might be one place where solid almost makes some sense even on a street car because changes will be more noticeable there under braking.

By "tightened up" do you mean you just cranked down on the nut? If your front bearings need to be replaced that's one thing, but you should definitely not just tighten them down. Did you follow the FSM procedures for proper torque on the front hubs? It's way less than you would expect. The nut gets torqued to 20ft lbs then *backed off by 60 degrees. I had a front wheel bearing fail pretty catastrophically last summer and the race bored out the hub. Most likely cause was that it was just too tight. initially and failed prematurely then seized suddenly and basically friction welded itself.

About 800 miles later. Running smooth. Temps with the new e fans were steady all the way. Only time they climbed a *little* was on very long uphill stretches. But it's to be expected when the turbo is getting loaded more and the return coolant line from the turbo goes straight to the thermostat. Overall very smooth, and as usual the long trip gave me a variety of small things to start looking at. Definitely want to update the mounting on the exhaust, just a bit too much movement and occasionally tapping the back and making some noise. New mounting method and the bigger muffler will make it downright comfortable on long drives.

Final update before road tripping tomorrow. I was so bothered by the vibrations last night come back home from my niece's birthday that I decided to pull off the front diff mount and inspect. It looks like the bolt through the bushing was either loose or the upper piece of the mount was warped and didn't let the side squeeze right on the bushing. Bottom was rattling back and forth when I moved it after taking off the cross member. 3 hours worth of work later and putting the RT top mount on instead I tested and the vibrations are gone! I had to grind part of the bolt going through the bushing to pull it out because I couldn't get any leverage on the bolts going through the diff and they block each other. For a moment I thought it was placebo, so I kept finding multiple loads and speeds that it would vibrate the most at last night and got nothing. The biggest difference is the lock mechanism on the seatbelts is never rattling anymore which was a huge annoyance. TL;DR - the T3 diff mount (not the cross member itself) is probably needlessly complicated and is just too many parts stuffed into a tiny space.

It's going to be good! I had to wait months for it, but it once it was ready to go shopping was very fast. Even with tariffs on entry it cost me much less than it would have from a vendor here in the US

Actually now that you mention it, I'm 99% certain the tires were not mounted correctly initially. The marks are long gone though, so my friend did the best he could. But This is the last trip on these tires and maybe these wheels so I'm not too stressed about it. More annoyed by the vibration under light load right now. That said, at around 70mph there's enough load in most situations that it's almost nonexistent and any slight noise it was making from 45-60ish is completely covered up by the wind and even other cars' tire noise while driving. I think I'm gonna switch back to the RT top mount tomorrow morning before the trip and if it's not better I'll just deal with it. The T3 mount they switched to on their front diff cross member is just so tightly packaged that I feel like it might be amplifying some of the noise or actually causing it. Part of me wants to just go to stock or a Kameari mount and the RT snubber on top

It was a good idea not to wait on rebuilding the 3.54 diff. The new LSD arrived weeks after I expected it and there's no shot I would have been able to swap it into the spare R200 before my trip. I'm excited to get this together in the winter though!

Got the front speakers in today! Considering none of the speakers are big it's not particularly impressive, but it sounds alright for a 50 year old car. More incentive for me to go to a quieter muffler next year which I didn't get to do this time around. Got the tires balanced and was surprised just how poorly balanced these things are. My new Panasport spare only need 1/2oz, these needed... So much more I won't bother counting each. The vibrating I was tracking down is 90% gone and now I can't tell what's left of it. With the wheels and driveshaft balanced it's almost entirely gone but over 50mph I'm still getting some vibrations on very low load - so cruising speed. The moment push the pedal a bit for even slow acceleration it's gone and when I'm off the throttle it's also gone.

My new speaker pods arrived, and I wired up my Spal fans and shroud from Galgo today! Need some more speaker wire that I'll pick up tomorrow. Fans work really well. Have them set to turn on at 185 and off at 175 in megasquirt.

People's Choice at a small cars and coffee in town this weekend. Brakes feel really good. It's weird feeling how firm the pedal is compared to the originals now that it's all stainless hoses and the rear has been upgraded. Even the parking brake is better than I expected! Getting wheels balanced today - I know for a fact one had a couple weights knocked off, I can see where the adhesive was, and I'm still upset about how many weights they used to balance one corner. Someone wasn't doing their job right when they mounted the tires I think, because there's no way you need two long strips on opposite sides to get a wheel balanced.

Car is finally back on the ground after waiting entirely too long on mismatched parts and alternatives when the flare on one brake hose broke. I was worried about the E brake capability based on some reviews but it seems like it's plenty capable on even a gentle hill after adjusting. at worst it's comparable to the original parking brake ability, but with less adjustment to do not. Not that drums were terribly complicated, but adjusting them properly was tedious.

Small jobs today- Replaced that short hardware on the front rotors to hubs I mentioned in a previous post. Included Pic is the size difference. Brakes didn't feel particularly unsafe on my few drives around town, but always better safe than sorry with the most important things like brakes. Second pic shows how the new hardware actually goes all the what out to the wheel mounting surface to engage as many threads as possible Next small job before the correct rear brackets arrive is re-adhering a part of the headliner that is sagging a bit. I think the adhesive didn't cure properly when I installed it forever ago and the intense heat on the roof at one show made it droop. Only fix is to reapply but fortunately it's easy since the rest of it is already adhered well and lined up. Hardest part of the job is centering it

Small update from T3 - Called today about the bracket issue, and their service guy on the phone told me the new brackets would get shipped out today. While bleeding the brakes yesterday to get a head start on some of the work left so they'd at least be close I noticed some fluid dripping from the opposite side. After inspecting it looks like the flare for the -3 end on one of my hoses was cracked. I ordered some new ones myself since I don't know if it was an installation error, but it's just one more thing wrong with the rear end. Despite shipping today I know they might be getting it out late enough that it won't actually leave California until tomorrow. Hopefully by Thursday I have a driveable car again. Two weeks until I leave on a road trip