Pop N Wood

The really early vehicles (like my 12/70) do not have the pocket behind the seat for the retractable mechanism. So whether that pocket is there or not should not be an issue. And like you said, it is not like you can find something that will work in those pockets that isn’t past it’s useful life. Most vehicles with retractable belts have a one piece lap/shoulder belt with the retractor mounted off the shoulder part. So any J/Y solution will not make use of the pockets. But it sounds like you don’t want a retractable mechanism at all? Sounds like something out of a 70 with the solid belts would be exactly what you want. Might be a tougher find. Also since you had a 5 point in a street car, I assume you realize how unacceptable a solid type belt is for day to day driving.

It is not that big of a deal to install both belts. I have a 70 240 that originally had the non-retractable, separate lap and sholder belts. The PITA with those was the catch part would fall down between the seat and the trans tunnel. I searched a JY and found a set of belts out of a Mazda 808 that had the catch on the end of metal rod. This holds it up over the side of the seat. Mounted the retractable part up on the stock sholder belt bolt. Woks fine for the street. Interestingly, the stock sholder belt mount does not give you the 5-10 degree downangle mentioned above. I also have a simpson 5 point harness bolted in. Only used that for auto X. I have it bolted to the shock tower, as did probably 90% of the guys I use to auto X against. Maybe not the best solution, but definitely better than the stock belts alone.

I would be a little careful posting your name and home state on the internet. Like you said, probably just punk kids who will go away if confronted with reality. But there are some true crazies, too. Who needs the aggravation or the threat to your family?

I just can't believe that is salvageable. I know anything can be rebuilt, but it looks like you will replace more metal than you keep. Was it me or is the entire transmission tunnel gone?

You have no idea what happened in that situation, no idea what the grunts experienced prior to the filming, no idea what their standing orders were and no idea whether they were ordered to destroy the car. Yet some how you feel justified in using terms like "morons" and "trigger happy" and attribute their motives to being "bored". A couple of words of advice. Don't believe everything you see on the internet and don't try and categorize US service men as a bunch of trigger happy rapist who are out to destroy innocent people's lives.

My comments are directed toward one individual in response to a presumptuous and IMO incredibly ignorant comment on his part. Your comments, on the other hand, are denigrating an entire army of service people based upon some video that is, by your own admission, of questionable origin.

A little over the line with that comment, don't ya think? Maybe you and Hanoi Jane ought to go over there and teach them boys the proper way to conduct themselves in a war zone.

I would replace the MC. When the pedal "occasionally" goes to the floor, then chances are the rubber seals are not gripping the cylinder walls tightly. Could be a slight bit of rust, some debris or maybe the seals are hardened from age. I would also swap in a larger diameter MC. My 70 240 had that issue with the stock brakes. A larger diameter will give you a greater fluid volume. The Arizona Z Car site says to use one from a 1979-1981 ZX (http://www.arizonazcar.com/brake.html) I am not sure what the configuration is on a 72 vs. a 70, but when you do it make sure you route the front brake lines to the end of the MC with the larger reservoir. The ZX MC is swapped front to back relative to the 240 unit. Arizona Z Car use to have a write up on line, but looks like the info on how to swap the MC got dropped from their site.

If all the pieces are there like you say, then that car is well worth 2K. You might try offering a little less since it sounds like you will have to tow the thing away on a trailer. Just make sure you get all the parts the owner can find. It could be tough trying to track down a box of miscellaneous fasteners. A lot of stuff could get misplaced in 16 years. Also don't be so quick to start replacing parts. Flush all the fluids first (and I mean all the fluids, front to back) and if any of the rubber show signs of cracking, then replace them in sets. Surface rust on the rotors and drums will rub off is short order. You might sift through the archives on how to resurrect a car that has been sitting. There have been several good posts full of suggestions. Mechanically you could probably get it running quicker than you think. Paint is another matter. The one thing that does scare me is the "NOS parts". If that thing had nitrous, they may be low miles but they probably aren't easy miles! But 2K is a good price for a rust free 240, even if the engine needs a complete overhaul. Is this a good deal for you? If you have a place to store it and a second car to use as a daily driver, then probably a good project car. Don't buy it if you have a time table where you need to get it running for transportation any time soon.

There was a HybridZ group buy on those about a year or so ago. At least a dozen people bought them and wrote of their experiences. I was on the fence but from what people wrote thankfully I didn't buy. I don't think I would have liked it. You might try the search again. I would rather you read the comments first hand rather than second hand through me.

You guys are arguing wording as much as anything else. The stock brakes may not “suck†and they obviously can be made to work if the rules require stock brakes. But the fact most serious racers do upgrade the brakes tells me something. Also your caveat “properly maintained†is correct but dangerous. When I read some of John’s posts on what he does to his car on a regular basis I am amazed. He obviously knows what it takes to win, but what street guy is going to go through all that every year? I think we should be strongly encouraging people to factor in a brake upgrade as part of the cost of their V8 conversion. BTW, I have a 70 240 and I am convinced the master cylinders had insufficient volume on those cars. There were quite a number of times where I would brake quickly and every now and then the car would feel like it didn’t want to stop. I was often tempted to double pump the brakes to get it to grab better. That might have been something specific to my car, but I have talked to others who said the same thing. A larger diameter MC and SS brake lines fixed that problem for good.

Man, what is it with guys named nic and 302's? Actually your structural requirements are no different for a 302 than a 350. Depending on how you build it the 302 won't be giving up that much HP compared to the 350. The thing to keep in mind is you have the structurally weakest Z made. The later ones flexed considerably less. So my suggestion is to spend a few weekends searching the chassis section reading old posts. This question is a common one. There are lots of different opinions on how it should be done so reading old posts will help you narrow down what you want to do.

You can try involving your credit card company, but from past experience I don't think they will be much help. Most cards won't get in the middle of a price dispute, only completely unauthorized charges. But don't believe me, see what they say. What I can't figure out is how did you get out of the shipping store with the wrong price? If you had known the true shipping cost, you most certainly would have made other arrangements. So once they accepted it, like someone said, it should be their problem.

Actually you gave your measurements in degrees, so I found the total angle via spherical trig: total angle = arccos( cos(vertical angle) * cos(horizontal angle) ) Use it all the time at work. As far as which way does the engine twist, just rev it a few times and watch. You know the front of diff will come up, but it too will twist a bit to the side. It is just like the one article said, for a street car put a little preload on the drive train and try and get this "average" position as neutral as possible.

Is it just me, or does that second article only measure driveline angles in the verticle plane? Where did they measure the side to side angles? bluex_v1, the numbers you give show the total angle difference between front to back to be 1/4 degree. That is better accuracy then they tell you to measure the angles to begin with. You're total U joint angle on the front is 3.178 degrees. That is awful damn close to 3 degrees to me. I would be a little weary of lining up the angles too precisely sitting flaccid in the driveway. I would try and visualize which way the engine is going to twist under torque and see if that will increase or decrease the driveline angles. Even under steady cruise there will be some twist. Also, wouldn't a Z with the diff bolted somewhat solidly to the chassis have an advantage over a live axle car? Seems like we are going to get less movement so wouldn't that mean we could tolerate more angle? Working against us is how short our driveshaft is and how low the rear end ratios typically are.

Sounds like a reason to reconsider an R180 with a Quaiffe. Heard all the real racers run that set up anyway I put an R200 into my 240 (with the stock 240 half shafts), but in all honesty I probably have not run my car hard enough to noticed such a problem. I will say the handling *seemed* to improve with the new diff, but I attributed that to moving the diff back to correct the half shaft alignment problem with the early 240's. Thinking out loud, why would you have to move the engine? You want some U joint angle, so as long as the diff and transmission centerlines are parallel (and the angle is not excessive), then what difference does it make if the angle has some side to side component as well as an up and down one? I thought as long as the angle between the transmission and driveshaft is the same as the angle between the diff and driveshaft, then all is good?

I want to avoid what the one member in either Texas or California (I forget which) did when he completed an LS1 swap, then sold the car when he couldn't get it smogged. I have to look into the cats Mike mentioned, but there is not much room under a 240. My stock floorpans are fine and I want to keep them that way. No doubt the distributor should have gone the way of points some years ago, and that one coil per cylinder is vastly superior to one large one. But the LT1 swap will save me some serious coin, will go fast enough to get me thrown in jail in pretty much any state of the union, and IMO they look so much better that the LS motors with their exposed coil packs and intake. Plus I won't need to buy a new set of tools to take down the bottom end.

Lottery tickets. There are at least 3 things on your list that could easily consume the whole 2K, so lottery tickets are your only hope. There was an ITS equiped rolling chassis from Vancouver on ebay just this week. Someone posted the link. http://hybridz.org/nuke/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=32479 Needed font brakes and an engine, but it had a cage, flares and totally gutted interior. From the pictures I think the 1% street use would really cost since this car had a totally gutter interior and no headlights. If you want 4 wheel disks than realistically your brakes will cost $800 at a minimum. There are worse things than rear drums, so I would be tempted to just upgrade the fronts. Cheapest option is 4x4 front calipers with the vented rotors. But those JSK's or Ross's Outlaw set up are very tempting. Beyond that my first priority would be getting it road worthy. Thus the mundane stuff like gas tank, brakes and rust repair would be at the top of my list. Problem with the rust repair is that job is always turns out to be more work than people think. CV conversion is popular, but IMO more of a luxury than a necessity. And from what I have seen on this site, stock Z car parts don't sell for much. So I wouldn't plan on much more than beer money.

Yes, that is what I believe too. OBDII cars are required to have an O2 sensor before and after the cat. Thus, without the cat, the computer program won't work right and there is mixed information on what you can legally do to fix this. So right now my target engine is a 94 or 95 LT1 since they still have the reprogramable computer of an OBDII car without the legal restrictions. Of course I could just not tell the state about the new engine, but I want the experience of doing it legally. At least at first.

Good to know about the cats. But with a 95 LT1 I wouldn't need even those. I need to get to a referee station and figure out just what they will require for an OBDII car. If I have the cats, why eliminate any of the O2 sensors? Others have mentioned that editiing the computer program is technically illegal. Thus the issue of ABS sensors. Somthing like that would make it not worth the effort.

The need for cats and the lack of ABS sensors might make for a difficult smog legal swap in an early 240. Otherwise an LS1 would be at the top of my list.

Hey, I've actually passed on your idea of the air hammer! In fact, it was probably your post that prompted me to finally buy an air hammer. I have a 1970 240 and checking my stub axles is high on my list of to do's. The only reason I haven't tried it already is my Z is on blocks waiting for several other projects to get done first. The reason I think the laser lines will work well is they have geometry working for them. Like I posted earlier, a 1/4 degree change in toe will cause a 52 thousands inch change across a 1 foot rotor. That same 1/4 degree of toe will cause a half inch shift along a 10 foot chalk line, and a full inch if the line goes out 20 feet. If I did the math right you could almost do it visually with a 20+ foot line. My worries with the dial indicators is it doesn't take much of a shift in the position of the car to upset the positioning of the indicators. You had good results so I know it can be done. But the other thing to consider is I don't own a dial indicator, but I did get two of those laser lines for Christmas. The only other thing I need is some carpet tape.

I have had that exact problem (but with a POS 74 Impala) and it was debris on the needle valve preventing it from closing. The bowl simply overflows. The hammer fix didn't work for me, but I did find a bunch of crud in the bowl when I disassembled the carb.

OK I have convinced myself. If is as simple as can be. With the wheel off and the spring removed, simply tape one of these on the side of the hub. Raise the hub until the suspension is around the normal ride height. The laser will draw a line on the floor. This is the direction the wheels are headed. Snap a chalk line under the laser. Now raise and lower the hub and compare the new laser line with the chalk line. The two lines should be perfectly parallel. Just run a ruler down the lines measuring the distance between them. The angle between the two lines is the change in toe. Move the pivot and repeat the above until the lines stay the same distance apart. This should be bulletproof.

Yeah, it gets complicated since they move independently. But those laser chalk lines project essentially planes of light, so if I think through the geometry involved I might be able to convince myself that it will work. The key is the control arm movement should stay nearly perpendicular to the car front to back centerline. I haven't given up on the idea yet. It make take a 6 pack to figure out. Good to hear about the difference it made. Probably helps answer the original question. As far as one size fits all, as long as the car's front geometry is near spec, then it seems reasonable that the same pivot point would work for all Z cars. If we can get a few people to actually measure their fix we could see how much variance there is.