Dragonfly
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Posts posted by Dragonfly
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Here are some more pics.
With fenders, hood and doors removed.
Engine compartment.
Interior shot.
Side shot.
Dragonfly
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True, no ones gonna steal your carbon hatch if they dont know its carbon.
But then again its not the Nissan community that steals from each other, It's those dahm Honda guys! well at least in CA it is...
I live in San Diego which is very close to Tijuana Mexico and makes anything that even looks like it may be of value a target for theft. I have no problem bragging to Nissan guys about the carbon fiber parts I am just leary of people I don't know walking by and seeing dollar signs pinned to the front and back of my car.
Dragonfly
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The flares are glass and I purchased them from one of our Hybridz members, if I am not getting my members confused Rick Bowers used to have the same type of flares on his car. The vents did in fact come from a 1980 Camaro. The car is going to be a weekend racer in autocross and drag racing, it will also see some road courses when I am able to get out there.
The reason I painted the carbon fiber hood and hatch is because I did not get them for looks I got them for weight reduction and after what they cost (which is a good price for carbon fiber parts) I did not want someone trying to steal them. I can honestly say that other than John Coffee who I bought the parts from I have never seen another Z with a carbon fiber rear hatch so I felt it was a good idea not to make it obvious to strangers. The paint color is a stock GMC color used on the 1991 Corvette.
Thanks for the compliments.
Dragonfly
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I finaly got the body work done and the car painted. I did most of the body work myself and I painted the interior (not shown yet), but I paid to have the remainder of the body work done and the exterior painted. The sun was not at a very good angle for taking pictures but here they are any way.
If you are wondering if there are small holes in the hood??? Yes there are, the hood is pinned into place because it is carbon fiber (made by John Coffee).
Rear hatch is also carbon fiber and also from John Coffee.
You can see in the picture that the underside of the car is painted different. I used a single stage epoxy of the same type and color as used on NASCAR cars for both durability and ease in finding anything wrong/leaking.
Doors and fenders are just set in place and not lined up yet.
Light gray paint on underside of car.
Dragonfly
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I just got my car back from being painted, and I went through pretty much what you are going through right now. I was going to paint the car myself so I purchased the paint, primer, clear etc. finished about 95% of the body work then got sent out of town for a couple of months for work... when I came back I decided to let a pro paint the car and I got a quote then I left town again for work... came back and decided to let the pro finish the last of the body work and do the prep as well. Having him do that more than doubled the price from just spraying the paint. In a nut shell the prep is very expensive.
The other thing I learned from this experiance is that even though I bought good quality paint and primer (very expensive for everything) it was not what he would have choosen to spray himself and even though it worked out just fine he says for the minimal extra cost of the paint etc. that he would have used the results would have been better. I am going to try to take some pictures of mine this eavining and I will post them later tonight or tommorow under their own thread.
Dragonfly
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Ive built 6 L series engines so far and never had this happen. If i had the right tools to do a leak down test, i would do it myself. Most of the so called "MECHANICS" wouldnt be allowed to touch my kids bike, let alone my 240z. With every engine i ever built, including big block chevys to small block fords, to datsun l4 and l6's, i usually fire em up, run em up to 1500 rpm and break em in for 10-15 minutes. No problems ever. Did i not stagger the oil rings correctly this one time, maybe? But all 6 cylinders, i think not. Must need a good break in, but time will tell.
I understand exactly what you mean about not letting anyone else mechanic or not touch your car... but not everyone has access to a leak down tester or the air needed to use it, and if you have never used one before you are probably going to have some issues trying to make it work. I don't see anything wrong with the break-in that you did and I doubt that it would be the rings not lined up properly. What I have seen in the past is a head with a very small crack in it allowing water into the cylinder, a cylinder with a very small crack allowing water in and (not a water thing but a loss of power thing) valves that were bent so slightly you could not see it but a leak down tester found all the above and will help you pinpoint the problem.
Dragonfly
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Glad your still around... now if it were me I would first check what Mike suggested (the bolts holding the rack), after checking them loose or not I would go through and systematicaly check every single bolt, nut and component in the steering system and that means from the steering wheel all the way to each front tire and don't skip anything. If you do not feel that you can do the job yourself take it to a shop and let them check it out, but be prepaired for the under car show and lecture about how you could have been killed just by driving the car, and last but not least take a look at what he tells you he found then fix it or get it fixed.
Dragonfly
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After you try the other advice that you have received "if" you still have the problem with smoking take it to a mechanic who can do a "leak down" test on it. Ask the mechanic to test at TDC (top dead center) and BDC (bottom dead center) of each cylinder (or as close to BDC as possible with both valves closed). If the mechanic finds anything out of the ordinary he should be able to explain it to you, if you do not understand what he is telling you come back here and tell us (HybridZ) what he says.
Good Luck
Dragonfly
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DRAGONFLY will the hole vents help airflow move from the wheel wells to engine bay and out the hood vents?
The holes are not intended to move air from the wheel wells to the engine compartment but rather the oppisite, I want to vent air from the engine compartment out through the vents in the fenders. I intend to put the plastic inner fenders back in to keep air from coming in from the wheel wells.
Dragonfly
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There was another post where I seem to remember someone weighing their fiberglass fenders and they were either the same weight as the metal or like 2 lbs lighter. If yours are 1/2 the weight that might just be worthwhile. Are they really 6 lbs? You got them off ebay? Any idea who made them?
I may have been the one who you are refering to as my glass fenders weighed in at 11 lbs each. I can say also that they had a label in them that looked very similar to what bjhines shows in his pictures. But my fenders were very inconsistant in glass thikness through out each of my fenders. I had about two years ago a pair of glass fenders (with the labels in them) that had never been on a car, I sold them to a kid who was admiring my car during a yard sale and asked if I had any body parts I would be willing to sell, and I let him have the fenders for $100 for the pair.
This is what I have done with the glass fenders that weighed in at 11 lbs (I have not weighed them again since doing this work).
bjhines I noticed you put vent holes in your car similar to mine you just did not put as many... here is a shot of mine.
Dragonfly
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these look great! and they're inexpensive, how are they comfort wise?
I am 5'-9" and weigh 165 lbs and for me the seats fit very well and are quite comfortable, I am not sure I would want to drive all day in them though as they are race seats and have no adjustments. Before I purchased them I went to a local race shop that had about 2 dozen diferent seats that you could sit in and check the comfort level etc. and to me for the price the MOMO's were the best, if I had been willing to pay 2 to 3 times more money the high end Sparco's and Recaro's were more comfortable and in my opinion the Carbeu's were by far the most uncomfortable and they seemed to cut off the blood flow to my legs causing them to get numb after only a few minutes. I have a friend who has the Carbeu's in his Z and they also caused my legs and feet to go numb after only a few minutes.
Dragonfly
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why does everyone dislike the stock seats? i love em
They are perfectly fine for a street driven car but in racing I found myself putting more effort into keeping in the seat than I did keeping on the race line. I can only speak for myself here but my car spends 90% of its driving time on a track, I can guess that most of the rest of the guys who are running "race" seats in thier cars also spend the majority of thier time on the track.
Dragonfly
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I am going to go out on a limb here and say that the car was probably in an accident at sometime in its life and was not properly repaired. I used to have a 74' 260Z that had that problem, when I bought it I was quite nieve about Z cars and I was told that the car had never been in an accident and that it needed new struts and springs... well I learned alot when I took it to a suspension shop to get the work done on it. The car had been in a major accident and the entire drivers side front corner (from the strut tower to the middle of the radiator brace) had been replaced (very poorly) then every thing was covered with bondo and painted to try to hide the poor work.
So from my experiance I would recomend that you (or someone you trust) go over the car very carefuly and look for any clues that it may have had accident damage poorly repaired, if everything checks out ok then start measuring from a good referance point on the suspension the height of each spring and make sure that the back springs are even with each other and the front spings are even with each other.
Good luck.
Dragonfly
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Here are two pictures of how I used 10mm super brite LED's with a resistor to replace the bulbs in my dash lights. Because the LED's project light in only one direction they do cause dark spots in your gages, the only way that I can think of to get around that is to incircle your gages as LLave did with his.
This picture shows the LED with the resistor soldered to the positive leg.
This picture shows the resistors leg soldered to the power wire in the connector. If you look closely you can see that the negative leg of the LED is soldred to the grounding tab in the connector.
I am using this without the green filters due to the dark areas left in the gages. I used 10mm super bright green LED's in my turn signal sockets.
Dragonfly
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The seats that I purchased for my 72' are the MOMO Cup seats.
These seats are light weight, they meet FIA requirements, can be mounted from the bottom or the sides and have removable pads for easy cleaning.
Dragonfly
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those things can cause an accident :s
I would be afraid that whoever is looking at them would also run into me since most people steer where they look...
Dragonfly
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Not quite push button but I work with on a daily basis what is basicaly a straight rheostat. By straight I mean it is not a round pot were you turn a knob but rather an aray of magnetic reed switches each one having its own resistance and as a magnet passes by each switch the resistance is changed causing the power/readout to change.
What would probably be easier to do with what it sounds like you are trying to acheive would be to use a standard rheostat that has the capacity you want then modify a bracket and linkage to allow linear movement to rotate the shaft in the rheostat.
Dragonfly
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Looks pretty damn sweet to me. Sounds like there was no step-by-step on this one. I'd be curious to see what kind of difference if any was felt by adding the splitter' date=' or the diffuser, or the X in between the engine and the radiator.
I see so many ideas that I've tossed around in my own head implemented there... wow.
[/quote']I have been examining the pictures to the best of my ability and it appears to me that the X in between the engine and the radiator is the new support to box the engine compartment because the original beam that supported that function and the radiator in its stock position does not appear to be there.
Dragonfly
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Just a few days ago I finished modifying my radiator to mount at the same angle as in the pictures of Toms car. I was trying to decide how I was going to lay out the aluminum to box in the radiator... well now I have my answer. That is absolutely gorgous and I am one of the people who would like to see some more pictures of the car and in particular how the radiator is mounted and how the aluminum is attached etc.
Dragonfly
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oops double posted...
Dragonfly
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I had the one that inserted into the fins and it was a piece of crap. It was very sensitive to any adjustment made but not as sensitive as it should have been to the actual coolant temp. It finaly just died and I went back to using a toogle switch and watching the gage. I will be going to a preset temp switch that installs into the thermostat housing soon so I don't have to worry about not seeing the temp gage quick enough. All that said I would not by another adjustable temp switch.
Dragonfly
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I run 255/50/16 tires on the rear of my Z also. They used to stick out far enough that if I hit much of a bump or dip while on the freeway I could hear the tires rub. I decided to put flares on the car which give me almost 3 inches more room for the tires. This is a picture of the car almost ready for paint but with the flare easy to see.
I did mock up the rear suspension with my tires on it and the tires cleared through there entire range of travel. My personal opinion is that if you want to run tires the size you have you should definately put flares on the car.
Dragonfly
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I am running Arias pistons in my 3.0 stroker and I am very happy with them. I have also had very good customer service with Arias.
If you are concerned about boring the block that much take it to a compitent machine shop and have it sonic tested also have them magnaflux the block, if those test are good you can have the block bored with no worries.
Dragonfly
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Maybe I was just unlucky but I broke two of them. Since going to camber plates I have not had any more problems.
Dragonfly
[/quote']
Finaly painted
in Body Kits & Paint
Posted
The car you are thinking of with the ghost flames belongs to my friend Jerry, I have posted a few pics of his car to make a point about one thing or another. I certianly remember all of us having a good time in Hooters and I am looking forward to doing the same again in the future. Once my car is running again I will be doing more club events and getting out on runs and things more often. With that in mind anytime I am going to be anywere remotely close to you I will let you know ahead of time.
Hey I saw the pics that Owen posted of the show at Long Beach... your car is looking TOUGH! I can't wait to see it in person.
Dragonfly