Pop N Wood

I think the engine still need to be FAA certified. Will drive up the cost. Also that 160 HP Cesna engine probably weights as much as the rotating assembly on the LS1.

Spent 5 days there when in the Navy. Very nice place. You will not own a car there, way too expensive. But you won't need one either. Nice people, never felt unsafe. I am 6 foot and felt like a giant. English is common, you shouldn't have a problem there. Never had a problem with sanitation, but I stayed in the central part of the city. You are definitely in for major culture shock going from the wide open spaces of Buffalo. That city is crowded. Unbelievably crowded. The harbor is amazing too. Giant hydrofoil ferries. Good thing you are getting paid housing, because that is super expensive there also. Not sure how things have changed since Red China has taken over. When I was there it was somewhat comforting knowing the British could bail out a drunk American sailor if need be. Big question is how old are your kids? Schools would be a big concern to me, but maybe your wife can home school for that short of a time? Not that I know any thing bad or good about their schools, I would just wonder about the language and culture barriers. Drugs were pretty common, maybe more so than here. Many things we list as illegal are OTC there. Stay out of the walled city. Other than the normal parental concerns it would be an excellent life experience for your children. While you are there you may want to plan a vacation somewhere “localâ€. Think cross country flight radius and there are quite a number of interesting places to visit. Thailand comes to mind.

Yeah, Dan's car is totally gay. He obviously has too much money and too much time on his hands. If he had half an ounce of testosterone he will sell that thing. In fact, to help him out, I would be willing to take it off his hands for him. Just as a personal favor. Hate to see him denegrate his manhood the way he has. He ought to trade up to a yellow Scion

Silver coins? Man, how old is that book?

That's not a vette rear end. Looks like the stocker to me. When you said LT1 I thought fuel injected engine from the 90's. That looks like your basic SBC swap in the Scarab position. From the engine position I will *assume* automatic transmission. Well whatever he wants for it he could double by just cleaning it up and posting new pictures. Early generation SBC swaps in decent, drivable shape often sell in the $5000 range. An empty, minimal rust 240 shell with no engine or transmission could sell for $3000 depending on whether it is truely low rust and the dash is cracked or not. Me personnally, I would have to look at it up close, but I wouldn't offer the guy more than $1500, and that is truely if it is minimal rust. The car looks like it will need to be trailered where ever it goes and that engine is almost undoubtably going to need to be pulled and refreshed. Plus I don't like moon roofs in Z's. Just my 2 cents. Try getting the block numbers. Maybe the engine is rare and worth more.

Stick two bolts into the flange then wedge a long piece of steel between them. Put a socket on the nut, with a long breaker bar if possible, and stand on both. Use your body weight to get the torque you need to pop the bolt. Super easy to do when you have enough leverage.

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000587040642/

The key here is "severely lowered". Not all street Z drivers want to lower their cars, especially in the cold weather states where the roads resemble the Ho Chi Min trail at the height of operation rolling thunder. What you are compromising is suspension travel and ground clearance when you decide to lower the car in the first place. Unsectioned struts and a stock ride height have more suspension travel.

Interesting swap. Not that many people have done the vette rear ends. Did he do the front suspension also? As for price, gonna need a lot more info. Condition of paint, weatherstrip, dash, suspension, wiring, etc. mean about as much the drivetrain. The other big question IMO is how complete is the swap and how well done? Picts would be nice. Might also want to detail what other performance upgrades have been done (wheels and tires, brakes, engine mods and year, type of trans, upgraded guages). Just the typical stuff.

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=82739&highlight=wanted

I just thank God video cameras didn't exist when I was a teenager. I would hate to have some of the stupid crap I did imortalized on video. Have to admit that kid got face planted real good.

Get a Matco or Snap On catalog and look at their fully populated tool chests. Don't they sell complete roll around tool chests with cut outs for each tool? Should give you ideas. Or buy a McLaren, the one that comes with the matching set of titanium tools. Should be well organized and thought out.

Insurance company profits are tied to the stock market (among other things). When things are going well they will sell their souls to generate investment income. A lot of insurance company's are not doing so well these days, so they start looking for ways to cherry pick customers. I once had my home insurance doubled because I called about whether I was covered for my sump overflowing. They came to the house, told me no, I did not opt for sump and drain coverage, then doubled my rates. When I went to get insurance somewhere else, I was told I could not get their preferred rate because my previous company reported I had made a claim. It is almost like they wanted to punish me for calling the a holes. On the other hand, I have had excellent luck with my Gieco car insurance. I went through a bad period where I had 7 accidents in a 3 year period. 3 of them resulted in insurance payouts. None were my fault, but the big one (over $7000 damage to my vehicle, probably more to the other) went against me in arbitration. Gieco agreed with me that I wasn't at fault and did not raise my rates. Hard to imagine. Someone else told me insurance companies will also look at credit ratings. Maybe that had something to do with my case.

Looks like a sweet deal. Probably should sell my unmodified 71 and buy yours. Would be the cheaper route, but maybe not as fun.

Don't know why the rear end would be any different for the LS1 than the LT1 or first gen SBC. The advantages of the R230's are strength, can find LSD version in JY's and can more readily do the CV swap. CV's are *generally* considered stronger and handle more extreme angles than the U joint half shafts commonly available for the R200 and R180's. I am not sure what the availability of gear ratios are. The disadvantages of the R230 is more work to install, much heavier than either the R200 or R180 and have less advantageous half shaft lengths (angles?) than the R180. CV's can be linked up to the R180/R200 with relatively inexpensive adapters. BUT, even though it is stronger, the weak link in an R230/CV rear will still be the stub axles. Ross at Modern Motorsport has billet stub axles that are suppose to be the strongest stub axle available (arguments anyone?). But this problem is common to the R180/R200/R230 set ups. The question you need to ask is how much strength do you need? It is commonly believed that the weak link in an R180/R200 is the spider gears. Spinning one tire eats them up and will make them fail. Many feel this can be eliminated/reduced by using an LSD of some sort. Options are a welded diff/spool (not advisable for a street car), a 4 pinion LSD (Power Brute makes a $550 one for the R200, not sure of the availability for an R180), or a $1600 (or more?) Quiaffe ATB rear (have both the R200 and R180 models). The quaiffe/LSD have different attributes and have been discussed in great detail in past threads. You could also search for a factory LSD unit out of a JY, but most people know what those are worth and they may require a rebuild anyway. With a near stock LS1 that isn't going to see pro stock type racing, you should be able to get away with an LSD R180 and save a good bit of weight and work. For more radical build ups, an LSD R200 should give you all the rear diff you will need. In either case you may consider CV's and stronger stub axles. Beyond that, or for 10 second passes, you could go R230 or you may want to consider a solid rear axle (Ford 9" or 12 bolt etc.). I think the biggest advantage of the R230 is availability. Score a deal on an LSD R230 with CV's and you have a relatively cheap route to a very strong rear end. I am sure others will chime in if they don't agree with the opinions above.

The guy in that third link obviously had an agenda. Even with that, it doesn't really say anything more than the links you posted before the election, other than the brilliant conclusion that Damn. There it is. This guy should write for ESPN. Still don’t like the handful of items that don’t fall under the catch all “for the most partâ€.

The problem is not with the MC but the diameter of the booster.

On the very early Z's there will be an issue with the clutch MC. Not enough room for the larger booster. Not sure what year the cut off was, your 73 might be OK. Look through old posts by zcarnut (Steve Golik). He has posted definitive information about this upgrade.

Larry Flint paid a $10,000 a day contempt of court fine to the US Supreme court fine in pennies, all while wearing a US flag as a diaper. I tried to buy a TV from Best Buy for my wife's minivan using $550 in quarters. They were in these mini M&M containers. The clerk was going for it, even had two other guys over to help count, when a store manager came by. Each M&M container held exactly $14 worth of quarters. The manager didn't trust that and wanted the clerks to count the quarters 1 at a time. Pisser. Took me over a year to save that many quarters. BTW, there is a Skagsville Maryland also. Right over near Pete Paraska's house.

Driveline vibrations get talked about here quite often. Z's are slightly more prone to vibrations from an incorrectly set up drive line due to the relatively short drive shaft and the generally higher shaft RPM's caused by the lower rear end ratios commonly found with Z’s. Ron Tyler had a whole section about driveline vibrations (can't find the link to his site). He was a strong advocate of aluminum driveshafts. He attributed the lack of vibration in his V8Z to the lower rotating mass of the aluminum shaft. What you really need to do is draw an imaginary line straight out of the transmission output shaft and diff shaft, then adjust the trans/diff mount points to keep those two lines parallel. This will guarantee the same U joint angle in the front and back joints. U joints don’t actually rotate at a constant speed (unlike CV joints, hence the name). Keeping them at the same angle keeps them in synch and harmonic vibrations to a minimum. I have always been wary about aligning the shafts with angle indicators because for one thing angles are generally hard to measure with any accuracy, but mostly because putting an angle indicator on the side of the transmission is no guarantee it is parallel with the output shaft. I guess the idea works because enough guys do it that way. IMO the solid drive shaft is good because you can see the exact axis of rotation of the output shaft. Just need something similar on the diff shaft and aligning the two would be a 10-minute job. I came up with the idea of using laser pointers and two sheets of paper. One guy actually did it that way (and posted how he did it). Spinning the shafts with the laser pointers attached guarantees the exact centerline of the output shafts are know. It is then just a matter of ensuring the two laser lines drop down and over by the same amount in the front and back (hence the paper). When that happens the shafts are parallel in 2 dimensions.

I'm telling you guys, douse the bowls of food with a water bottle of antifreeze. Problem solved. Takes about half a teaspoon to make their internal organs shut down. Just don't get caught doing it. BTW the thing about cat feces and pregnant women is absolutely true. Don't let them near droppings from an outdoor cat.

Some models of S10's have a pretty good tow rating. I would get on the web and look up the tow rating of the pathfinder. Like Magnum said it might be better than you think. I know my FWD minivan has a 3500# rating. A number of small SUV's were similar. But that #3500 is suppose to be trailier and cargo/passangers.

Antifreeze

Man that looks really nice in there. Good work.

Be a little careful with the sealers. Those can delaminate and clog the fuel system also. Just ask Pete Paraska. Has to be done just right to stick.