Dragonfly

Very well said Mike. Dragonfly

I just got my brakes and I decided to take a few pics. This one shows the new ZRaceProducts aluminum adapters for the 4X4 calipers, my new rear rotors and my cross drilled front rotors. Different angle same thing. This one has the adapters sitting on the front rotors. As you may have noticed in the pics the adapters are not just a flat piece of aluminum with some holes drilled in it. These are machined out to precise tolerances and have a lip that sticks out on them to lock them into the rotor and an inner bore to lock the hub into the adapter. Each adapter is then test fitted on a jig to insure proper alignment. Yea I'm happy. Dragonfly

Holy crap!!! that is going just a little over the top in my opinion... Well here are a few suggestions to make the car lighter: insure that you have the early style doors with the much lighter side crash bar in it, go to CF hood and hatch http://www.betamotorsports.com/products/CarbonFiberHoods.html, http://www.betamotorsports.com/products/CarbonFiberHatches.html, of course use Lexan in the hatch. Fiberglass fenders will save you about 1 or 2 pounds but they will not rust. Go with after market LCA's and coil overs they are lighter and adjustable. Use non reclining fixed (with no slider) racing seats (not the knock off looks like a racing seat crap you find at some auto parts stores). There are more things you can do but at this point the car is already getting outside of the daily driver catagory and to go much further it will be outside the weekend driver catagory. By the way the 72' and older Zcars have a thinner gage sheet metal that the car is made out of which makes them lighter than the newer Z's by a few pounds. Dragonfly

Tony, I have a drill, vise and hacksaw, plus there is a wrecking yard not far from me (200SX throttle cable). Can I get you to elaborate a little more or do I need to wait until the next time I get a chance to see you in person? Dragonfly

I am hoping to make it to another HybridZ MSA mini meet (or be involved in at least) at the next MSA show, if you make it down south again I will give you another ride... should be alot of fun. I am sure Van, Tim, Owen... will be game for a HybridZ mini meet. Dragonfly

Here are some pics of the Dragonfly on the ground. And a picture of what will make it run. Dragonfly

This is a little late now but for anyone else in the future it may help. Napa sells an extendable magnet (antenna type) that has a quick disconect on the magnet end that allows you to put different attachments on it. One of the attachments that comes with it is a magnet that has an LED light in it so you can actualy see where the magnet is pointed. This thing cost about $10 but is worth every penny in my opinion. It is similar to this one but not quite as fancy http://www.kentool.com/CARICA/lightedpickup.shtml. Dragonfly

I have just contacted Mike and he is buying my AZC LCA's and I am going to be purchasing the ZRaceProducts LCA's like I mentioned in this thread http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=116291&highlight=dragonfly Thanks Mike. Dragonfly

The money thing is always an issue to some degree, here's what I have done: I created a "car fund" account at my bank and it is called CAR FUND. The car fund gets $25 per week from my regular pay check then it gets any money that I make by selling car parts, being paid to help someone else on thier car etc. I also started working on the side after my regular job and all profit from that work goes into the car fund. What is important to keep in mind is that you can only use the money in the car fund for your car don't go borrowing money from somewhere else for one of those "great deals" that Grumpy mentioned earlier. If you don't have the money in your car fund for something don't get it yet as much as it may seem like it the one that got away is not the only one in the world. Spend wisely (PLANNING) because it is much easier to empty the car fund then it is to fill it. Again as mentioned by Grumpy, get involved with a car club... don't just show up and be a lump in a chair Get Involved, be a part of the club then use your knowledge and skills to your advantage and learn from the other members knowledge and skills. I am detail oriented and good at building and assembling mechanical things, I have members of the club knocking on my garage door offering free labor in exchange for teaching and experiance and I do the exact same thing with some of the other club members so I can learn more skills. The hardest part of the whole thing is like mentioned by someone else in this thread is "time" my day job has been very busy all summer and is still busy now, my side work has gone nuts lately and even though it is helping my car fund its killing my time and it has also caused me for the time being to have to turn down the free labor that has been offered to me but I intend to take advantage of that help real soon. Dragonfly

The rims were custom made by John Williams the owner of Williams Machine, John is also the guy who makes virtualy all of the billet parts that you see in the "Motorsport" catalouge. The tires are Good Year GSCS race tires. Just to clarify before I get a bunch of questions about John making custom rims for everybody... he was provided with the outer rim then he made the center section and welded it into the outer rim at the requested offset. These were made for someone else and I bought them before I ever knew John did the work on them. Dragonfly

For me it is theory, I have heard of other people doing it and that it works fairly well. My predominant reason is to help releave the pressure of air pushing back on the fire wall, now it can go out the sides rather than all being pushed under the car. I also have louvered inspection lids but they are not in any of the pictures yet. Dragonfly

The rear tires are 255/50/16 the fronts are 225/50/16. Dragonfly

Oops... I guess when I checked it on my computer I did not think about the fact that I was also logged onto the other forum so it worked fine. Heres the pictures. side shot with no fenders another angle from the side with no fenders side shot with fender front shot with no fenders front shot with fenders rear shot high rear shot low Dragonfly

I guess I am being a little lazy here but I am attaching a link to the pics. http://zraceproducts.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32 Dragonfly

I have had in my hands both the Arizona Z LCA's and the ZRaceProducts LCA's and I can say that there is no mistaking the differance in strength and durability. I have never seen the Modern Motorsports LCA's in person I have only seen them in pictures so I can not make a comment about them. With that said I purchased just over a year ago the Arizona Z LCA's and I have them sitting in my garage in the box they came in (my car has been fully dissasebled for over a year now) and after ZRaceProducts finished his LCA's he showed them to me and I started kicking myself in the butt for not waiting for his to be finished with testing before buying the others (unrealisticaly... thought I would have the car going way before Jerry had his LCA's ready to sell). So... anyone who would rather have the Arizona Z LCA's for what I paid for them let me know because I will buy the ZRaceProducts LCA's in a heartbeat. Dragonfly

I have been told in person by Jerry the owner of Zraceproducts that if you ever break one (or both) of his LCA's that he will replace the broken one free. His only request is to see the car that broke it and hear the story behind it. I do also know a couple of guys running these LCA's on thier cars and they love them. Dragonfly

If you are lucky... I have yet to see any new replacements for the filler hose, but you can still find them in the wrecking yards, they seem to be one of the parts that is always still on the car. Since you probably can not run a heat gun in the wrecking yard (not much electricity to be had there) you may want to buy or borrow a butane soldering iron, they come with a heating attachment for shrinking heat shrink tubing which you can use to heat up the filler hose to make it pliable. Dragonfly

I think you got pretty lucky as well... the rust on the A pillar will probably be the hardest to repair but I know someone else on here did it and posted pics. The dog legs can be purchased from a company called Tabco and there are pics on here of people making that repair also. I saw in your pics that you did not remove the fuel filler hose and you primered it at the same time as the rest of the car. I know it is hard to remove but I think you would have been better off the do the extra work to remove it. The best way in my opinion is to remove all the screws (as it appears you did) then use a heat gun to heat up the top "flange" of the tube, then it becomes much more pliable and you can pull it downwards to get it out. Do the same again to remove it from the lower hole and the metal rings that seal it. When you are ready to put it back in do the same thing but in reverse. Dragonfly

On my car I have fiberglass fenders, flares and headlight buckets, carbon fiber hood and rear hatch and everything else is metal. The reasons for the FG and CF are for weight and no rust... I am going to be making my radiator supports and "box" out of aluminum and again it is for weight and rust purposes. Dragonfly

During valve overlap when both valves are open and the piston is still moving upward you can get "backflow" into your intake. If you are turbo charged and your intake pressure is greater than your cylinder pressure at the time it will push everything out the exhaust valve. As I recall anti reversion as seen in the automotive world was discovered by racers and has been used to help with scavaging exhaust out of the cylinders. Dragonfly

Buy a block of beeswax (not in a honeycomb form but rather melted down and molded into a block) then run your rasp on the block of beeswax prior to using it on the aluminum, this will help to keep the aluminum from clogging the rasp. The beeswax will also make it easy to use a wire brush to clean out the rasp after each use, just remember to apply more beeswax prior to grinding the aluminum. Dragonfly

I like blended myself... Dragonfly

Mike... what is going on with you? If it weren't for the fact that I know you I would think you were a trouble maker. Well I think you should be grounded for a while... lets see you should only be able to go to work and to races until it seems you are no longer going to hurt yourself or get into street brawls (or about a week whichever happens first). Dragonfly

Sent you an email... and tell Gail I said Hi. Dragonfly

Mike, I just got back from the Grand Canyon a week ago, would you like me to email you some pics to help get the wife motivated? Dragonfly