Dragonfly

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

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

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

I would be afraid that whoever is looking at them would also run into me since most people steer where they look... Dragonfly

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

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

oops double posted... Dragonfly

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

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

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

Maybe I was just unlucky but I broke two of them. Since going to camber plates I have not had any more problems. Dragonfly

I can tell you from personal experiance that if you move your struts away from their stock position without haveing something like a pillow ball to keep things from binding you will break the top threaded portion of your strut off the first time you make an aggresive turn or hit a major bump a little to hard. After learning that lesson the hard way I bit the bullet and purchased camber plates and coil overs. If you want the adjustment the expense is worth it. Dragonfly

There is another option that was done by my buddy Jerry the owner of http://www.zraceproducts.com. This may not be legal for SCCA etc. so if you try this method be sure to check the rules first. Jerry built his cage in a very similar fashion to Mull but after each piece was made and test fitted he did the following. 1. Assembled the cage in the car and put a single small tack weld at each joint just to hold it together. 2. Marked a "cut" line on all the tubes that would allow the cage to be cut and removed without touching a welded joint. (cut line should be at least 4" from welded joint) 3. Put locator marks at each joint then cut the spot welds to remove the cage. 4. Use a large tubing cutter to cut the cage on the cut lines from step #2. 5. Weld all the joints together using your locator marks from step #3. Add any gussets that you want and prep and paint the cage at this point. 6. 1 1/2" from the point were the cage is cut in step #4 drill a 3/8" to 1/2" hole through both walls of the tube. Do this on each piece i.e. when you put them back together both pieces should have a hole drilled all the way through it. 7. Take a 4" length of tubing (of the same material as your cage) that has an OD just slightly smaller than the ID of your cage tubes and insert it 2" into the cage tube (the side you use is determined by which direction you want to assemble it in the car) and plug weld it in place through both holes. Do this on one side of each cut making sure you can assemble it in the car. 8. Assemble the cage in the car by fitting all the pieces together. 9. After assembly is complete plug weld the rest of the holes. After step #9 you can touch up and repaint the areas that you had to clean for welding. The plug welds are not as strong as your other welds but they do not need to be as they will not encounter shear forces great enough to break them without bending your cage in half first. I do not have any pictures of his cage to show but I can answer any questions any one may have about it. Dragonfly

There are alot of guys on here who ride and I am one of them. Being in SoCal I ride about 98 percent of the time I am on the road. Over and above the comment (which is VERY true) about acting like you are invisible, my advice to you while you are riding is NEVER let your attention lapse. When you are riding you have to be focused on riding and you should not be thinking about anything else. As a side note anything in the road that you would just ignore and run over with your car can and probably will hurt you if you hit it with the bike so always watch far enough ahead to allow you to avoid what the car in front of you is going to run over. Ride Safe Dragonfly

Good job with the photo shop. The flames look pretty good at that scale. Dragonfly

Yours was one of the first ones I remember seeing and I was suprised that it was not molded in, and is a damn good looking Z molded in or not. The other pictures of Z's with vents molded in look great. I hope when mine is painted it will look as good. Dragonfly

Some pics of my buddies car from http://www.zraceproducts.com with "traditional" ghost flames on it. I am not sure what the "real flames" type flames would look like painted in a ghost fashion. Dragonfly

Here are a few pics of the process. fender with hole cut for vent. fender with vent test fitted in place. vent blended in with bondo. vent bolted into fender as seen from wheel well. vent glassed into fender. Dragonfly