Dragonfly

Well Matt as far as the sale of Z cars goes I've had mine for sale for awhile now and I am asking what I consider a bargain basement price for it ($10k) and although I have some interest I have not seen anything serious yet. Yours is certainly more street friendly than mine but I still feel that the current economic situation has lowered peoples willingness to spend that kind of money on a toy which is what "most" of the Z's on HybridZ are. Good luck Dragonfly

This is what happens when you add a Hayabusa engine to a smart car http://ru.youtube.com/watch?v=sLtMh20qIp8&NR=1. I guess you could call it a smart hybrid... as it is a full tube chasis with suspension and of course the Hayabusa engine http://ru.youtube.com/watch?v=pl_r2BdAhVQ&feature=related. Oh yea I think this is the Russian version of Youtube. Dragonfly

Yep I was confused... and nope that will not do what you want. The best thing that I think you can do is to drop the oil pump fill it about 3/4 full with oil reinstall it, pull the filter make sure it is as full as you can get it, pull the plugs and crank the engine over untill you get pressure (should come up fairly quick) then reassemble and start. Dragonfly

You are correct, you can go in through the sending unit hole and provide pressure that way. You are also correct in that when dropping the oil pump there is no longer any pressure in the system. The purpose of priming the system and creating oil pressure is not so much to have full pressure when you start the engine but rather to have oil in every oil passage inside the engine and as much oil as possible inside the pump so that when you do start the engine you start building pressure with the very first crank. If you were to remove the spark plugs and crank the engine you would build oil pressure as soon as the pump primes and you would fill all the oil passages with oil, but as soon as you stop cranking the engine the oil pump stops building pressure and the pressure you had drops to zero so by the time you put the plugs back in and start the engine you have accomplished the same thing that I had done only you also did some dry running of all the moving parts first. By doing it the way you are thinking through the sending unit hole you could have it pressurized at start up but if the oil pump in the engine happens to overload your external pump you are going to have one heck of a mess... and you don't want to shut off the engine untill the cam is broken in, also you will not have a gage on it so you won't know for sure that you truly do have pressure (if for some reason the pump doesn't prime you could trash your engine, assuming that you shut off the external pump). Dragonfly

I am going to go into another one of my somewhat long winded explanations here… The primary reason that mechanical speedometers bounce is due to a small leak in the transmission. What happens is the seal that keeps your gear oil from getting through the speedometer gear in the tail shaft starts to leak by, the speedometer cable is fully sheathed from end to end and the metal under the sheath is a coil or spiral shape. Since they do not pay particular attention to which end is which when the manufacture them some times the spiral runs clockwise and sometimes counterclockwise so as oil seeps into the cable it is either driven up the cable by the rotation of the cable or it is forced to stay in the gear (usually causing a oil spot to form on your driveway at that point), when the oil is forced up the cable it will eventually make its way into the speedometer. It takes a long time for this to happen because it is not an easy trip and every time you stop the oil drains back down… anyway when it finally gets inside the speedometer it ends up between the magnetic disk and the cup, this area should be very precisely spaced and have only air and the magnetic field in it. When the oil gets in there it creates a viscous bridge between the magnetic disk and the cup causing the needle to jump up then the bridge breaks and the needle drops back down because of the hair spring (tension spring that creates a known resistance to the movement of the needle and forces it back to zero when at rest), this will happen over and over usually in a very rapid fashion. If the problem is not fixed it will lead to the eventual destruction of the speedometer, the jumping is the first sign, the second is it stops jumping and just reads high all the time, the last is the failure of the hair spring which will cause the needle to just get stuck or go to zero and never move again. The only real way to fix this problem is to repair the speedometer gear in the transmission, replace the cable and replace the speedometer. You could repair the speedometer but I am not going to tell anyone how to take it apart, if you want to do that you are on your own. Dragonfly

What I did with mine was I took an oil pump shaft (extra one I had) and removed the gear from it, I dropped the oil pump and filled it about ¾ full with oil then reinstalled it with the modified oil pump shaft. With the pan full and the oil filter in place I took some fuel line and put it over the end of the pump shaft (distributor removed) then stuck the other end over a large drill bit and inserted it into my handheld drill motor, I ran the drill until I had good pressure on the gage then took everything back apart. I put a pan under the oil pump pulled it back off removed the modified shaft and reinstalled the normal shaft, added a thin bead of form a gasket to both sides of the gasket and put it back together, then when I started the engine I had oil pressure just as quickly as I do now when I start the engine. It is a little messy to do it that way but you know for a fact that you have oil and you will not start on a dry engine so to me it was worth it. Dragonfly

Let me see if I can explain this in relatively easy terms… There are several different types of “accuracy†with the most common being indicated value (IV), full scale (FS), floor value (FV) and multi value (MV). I will use an S30’s 160 mph speedometer as the example for each of these accuracy types. IV: Lets say for example that the speedometer has an accuracy of +/-10% IV, what that means is if the speedometer reads 10 mph it will be within 1 mph or no worse than 9 mph or 11 mph but if the speedometer reads 100 mph it will now be within 10 mph and at 160 mph it would be within 16 mph. Now we know that is not realistic for a speedometer so IV is not the correct accuracy type. FS: Again lets use +/-10%, now the way this works is you multiply 10% X 160 mph giving you 16 mph so if the speedometer is reading 10 mph it can be within 16 mph or 0 mph to 16 mph but if the speedometer reads 100 mph you still are within 16 mph and at 160 mph you are still within 16 mph. Again we know that this is not the case with a speedometer so FS is not the correct accuracy type. FV: This is added to either IV or FS, as an example we could say that the speedometer is accurate to 10% IV + 5 FV so now at 10 mph we will be within 6 mph (10% of 10 + 5 = 6) or 4 mph to 16 mph but if the speedometer reads 100 mph you will be within 15 mph (10% of 100 + 5 = 15) or 85 mph to 115 mph and at 160 mph you will be within 21 mph. Again this will not work for our speedometer (nor will it work with FS + FV) so FV is not the correct accuracy type. MV: Multi value means that you use more than one percentage value across the range of the gage as an example lets say that we have an MV of 10%, 5% and 20% IV with the gage being divided between 0 to 20% (0 to 32 mph), 21 to 70% (33.6 to 112 mph) and 71 to 100% (113.6 to 160 mph). Using this example with the speedometer reading 10 mph we are within 1 mph or 9 mph to 11 mph, with the speedometer at 80 mph (typical Z cruising speed) we will be within 4 mph or 76 mph to 84 mph but when we get over about 112 mph lets say 120 mph we are looking at being within 24 mph or 96 mph to 144 mph. Now this is much more realistic for a speedometer so MV is the correct accuracy type. Now I know some of you are about to point out the overlap between the 112 mph and the 120 mph, well the way that works is if your speedometer is reading a full 20% off when that close to the 5% portion of the gage then the 5% portion of the gage would be reading greater than 5% and therefore would be out of tolerance and the gage would be adjusted to read more accurately. Now as a side note a floor value can be added to a multi value and probably is with speedometers (at least the older ones like in S30’s) because of the tension spring and magnetic cup design of the speedometer which is going to forcibly decrease your accuracy at higher speeds by the fact that the spring is getting tighter and the magnetic cup has more spring tension to try to overcome. Also the manufacturers of speedometers build them to be the most accurate in the range in which they expect most of the driving to be done which in the USA is between 35 mph and 80 mph. Dragonfly

It may be in your best interest to remove the door handle any way. I have had a couple of them where the spring broke but you could not tell by looking, it just didn't work right anymore. Once it is off you can find the break which will probably be in the middle of the coils (if it is broken). Dragonfly

Sounds like you might be refering to the spring... if so it's a PIA but if you can get a sring hook (looks like a dental instrument) you can use it to pull the spring back in place. If I am wrong about it being the spring it may be in your best interest to remove the door handle in order to have enough room to try to fix it. Dragonfly

Did it break or just seperate? If it broke you can remove the outside door handle from the other door and swap them as both sides have the tab but only one tab is needed. If it just seperated than you have to use a good pair of pliers to carefully "pop" the plastic covered rod end back through the hole in the tab. It doesn't exactly look like that is what you are pointing at in the picture but what I described is fairly common and in the picture I can't tell for sure what came off. Dragonfly

I realize I do not normally quantify this but when I use the term "general rules of thumb" it is what I create from my own distilled views of things I have read, talked to others about (with more experiance than myself) and personal experiance. From the above I have seen a trend that shows less experianced riders tend to highside considerably more often than lowside mostly due to the fact that newer riders do not trust themselves or thier bikes enough to push into a lowside (or regain grip and highside it) this is considering good weather and road conditions, in bad weather and slippery road conditions the opposite will be true. A rear brake lockup which is fairly common to newer riders from what I have seen tend to cause highsides if not recovered. I also feel that most "blow the curve" type situations are caused to a degree by target fixation that is usualy brought on by coming in to hot and looking for an out rather than a path through the curve. I do feel that people who are more experianced riders tend to lowside more often than highside but that is something that comes with pushing the limits be it of yourself or the bike. Suggested reading would be anything by Keith Code or Freddie Spencer. As a side note I tend to try to study the cause of accidents as well as read the findings by those who study them for a living any time I can. Also as I think about it more I should have used the term "in my opinion" rather than "general rule of thumb". This I agree with you completly on but my made up estimate would be higher. Dragonfly

To me it sounds like target fixation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_fixation which is one of the most common causes of single vehicle motorcycle accidents. The wikipedia definition is somewhat broad, if you read any of the advanced riding books they go into much more defined explinations and examples. Along the same train of thought a general rule of thumb is that if you highside the bike you were riding beyond your capabilities if you lowside the bike you were pushing the bike beyond its capabilities. Dragonfly

Good job, now be safe and have fun. BTW JoeRocket makes a good jacket in my opinion. Dragonfly

My most painful was from a jelly fish when I was 16, the pain lasted for over a week (I would have never guessed at that time what the cure for a jelly fish sting was...). #2 was a scorpion sting on the bottom of my foot when I was 17, he crawled onto my foot while I was asleep, the tickle woke me up and he got me as I went to scratch my foot. Scariest but least painful was a spider bite when I was about 10, I don't know what kind of spider it was because I squished it to mush as soon as I felt it bite my finger... I still to this day have an extreamely small red spot on my finger where he got me. I have also been bitten by a few different snakes with the most painful being a garter snake (on each snake bite it was a case of dumb a$$ kid playing with a snake he knew was not poisonous). My closest call was a few days ago while cleaning in the back yard I pulled my gloves off then a few seconds later felt a tickle on my hand... recognized the feel of a spider so I quickly flicked my hand, looked on the ground and there was a brown widow by my feet, she died very quickly and I was lucky. Dragonfly

Here are the pictures that josh817 is talking about: As you can see the 38mm are quite thin but what is virtually impossible to see in the pictures is the taper. The taper is moved from the stock location by a small amount and the taper angles are different in order to get as much effect as possible out of such a thin venturri. They work quite well but are very delicate when outside the carbs. Dragonfly

The cost was not bad but the time waiting had a lot to be desired. The reason I had them made was because my carbs were to small for my engine and since I had traded SU's for the tripples it was worth it for me to invest in making them right for me rather than just buying the correct carbs... So to me your statement makes perfect since and as long as you are in a position to do so you should buy the correct parts rather than modify the incorrect ones. Dragonfly

I'm not sure how much impact this has on downforce but this picture is of a vintage race car that is running a V8 in the rear of the car and the little hole at the bottom in the front is the inlet for the radiator and it keeps that engine from overheating. Just guessing on this part but I think the low pressure created above the radiator helps to pull the air through at a volume that is somewhat proportional to the speed of the car. Dragonfly

Mine is like pic #1 but not as radical of an angle. This should give you an idea of how I did mine. This shot is from my mock-up Dragonfly

That was a weight added on by the factory because the rear diff would clunk sometimes when shifting an auto into gear, by adding the weights (extending outward from the diff towards the front of the car) they were able to dampen the movement of the diff and predominantly eleminate the clunk noise. From the sounds of your application it is certainly not needed and most likely of no value to anyone other than a metal recycler. Dragonfly

In the state of California that height is 21" from level ground to the middle of the headlight. I don't know if they have any requirements like that in Canada. Dragonfly

I have a complete set of those lights and the housings with adjusters and levels. They would be a bit of a chore to install and make look correct but I am sure it can be done. Dragonfly

One of the things that got me to use AMSOIL over the marketing of others was one of my co-workers, he is a former GSEC (gas turbine Cheif in the Navy) who informed me that the Navy uses AMSOIL (although it goes by a milspec number instead of a brand name) for thier gas turbines in the ships that have gas turbine propulsion. There are more details about that but I won't go into them other than to say I can never abuse the oil as much as these gas turbines do. Dragonfly

It takes some searching but I have a Gericke jacket (brand new) that cost $35, an Alpinestar jacket (brand new) that cost $40, a Joe Rocket jacket (slightly worn) that cost $15, a pair of Dainese leather pants with replacable pucks (brand new) that cost $25 and a pair of Harley Davidson embroyedered leather riding boots (slightly used) that cost $45. These were all items that fit me but I will say that I certianly did not find them all at once, this has been over a couple of years but I have seen several other pieces of motorcycle safety gear in very good condition at very good prices but in the wrong sizes for me on a semi regular basis. The object is to start looking before you need the items so when you need them you have them. Dragonfly

IMHO they are the best synthetic made. Dragonfly

Amsoil straight 40wt full synthetic with Amsoil filter. Also Amsoil in the T-5 (gear oil of course). Dragonfly