Pop N Wood

The Arizona Z car brakes have been around long enough that I think we would have heard about any design deficiencies by now. Brake parts are certainly not something to guess at. But, at the same time aren't the backing plates on rear Z drums just stamped sheet metal? 1/4 inch plate may be more than strong enough depending upon the design and how things are attached. I would be more worried about stress points causing cracks at the joints. But who know? Better to error on the side of caution here.

Oh, man. We aren't going to start that again? Horsepower is very real, just as real as torque. The ONLY reason car guys compute HP from torque is because that is the easiest way to do it. It is possible to measure an engine's power output directly then use the same equation to compute torque. I have seen it done. Would that then make torque "not real" but a "mathmatical formula"? HP is a measure of power, the exact same thing as kilowatts. You can just as easily rate a lightbulb in terms of horsepower (a 100 watt bulb is really an eighth HP bulb). But it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to try and rate a light bulb in ft-lbs. And I have said it before. Horsepower is what determines how quickly a car can accelerate, NOT torque. To go fast, the optimal gearing is whatever keeps your engine revs closest to the horsepower peak. A fat torque curve only relaxes the gearing requirements and makes the car more pleasant to drive.

Agreed, very nice install and a good engine. But the reason I would think twice is cost. Z's are blessed with an engine compartment that allows a wide variety of options, most of which would return more HP for less $$. But not to take away from the car. Beautiful work.

You guys really need to wire 220V into your garages! Tap off the dryer or stove outlet if you can. 220v is much better in that it won't dim your house lights when striking an arc. The less line current you draw the better everything works. Saws and air compressors included. But I know that some old houses just don't have it.... I bought a Century 145 Amp DC mig welder close out at a Sam's club for less than $400. Nice machine. Some guys complain about Century's cheaper machines, but I have had no trouble with this higher end one. Came with the air kit but no bottle. Harbor Freight is a good source of cheap bottles, although get a larger size to reduce the need for refills. Flux core wire is good for welding outside, but man the smoke is an absolute killer inside. Flux core wire costs more than regular wire with sheilding gas, so in the long run you are money ahead with the gas.

Yeah, I have read California graduates more new lawyers in any single year then there are in the entire country of Japan...

Why get complicated?

Scrubbing bubbles will remove dirt and grease also, without the markup of a car specialty product.

You can also use saw dust just like the kitty litter. The Trak Auto/Home Depot oil dry stuff is the same as kitty litter. Really, as long as you cover the spill and rub it in with your foot as soon as it happens it is not a problem. For the stains that have been sitting awhile, Tide has trisodium phosphate. Mix up some Tide and a little Colorox in a bucket of water, scrub into the stain, let it sit awhile then either pressure wash or scrub and rinse and they are gone. While your at it, the same mixture makes an excellent deck wash and house siding cleaner. Might as well do the fence while the pressure washer is out.....

Funny I saw it as two differing points of view trying to reasonably justify their opinions to others... Not sure what the harm is in it. Nobody was getting bent out of shape about it either. I agree.

Ever see the movie "Blue Velvet"? I think that was Naws Dennis Hopper kept snuffing off.

About a year ago there was a long thread about the myth of warped rotors. Someone posted a link that says the vibration is not due to warp/bent rotor but an uneven layer of brake pad material built up on the rotor. The link included detailed instruction on how to "bed" in new pads to the rotors to prevent this. I don't remember what the fix was once the rotors have "warped". Certainly having them turned will get the old material off, but there may be some way to bed in the pads on top of the "warped"rotors. Try a search, or maybe someone will repost the links. For your brake fade, replace the brake fluid with some high temp stuff. Then try to rig some type of ducting to keep the front brakes cool.

Definetely my suggestion.

That tells me everything is working as it should. Is the car still dying since you replaced the alternator and voltage regulator together? Ampmeters are horribly inaccurate. A voltmeter will tell you much more. But I guess you have enough experience watching amp meters at this point to know if it is telling you something. A couple of things. You said If the battery died while you were running, it would not have had enough juice to crank the motor. Sounds more like a loose connector or intermittent short to ground. You also said when you replaced the alternator the first time that the "amps were almost all the way to +60". This is extremely bad. Tells me you either had a short some where OR your voltage regulator was bad causing the alternator to put out WAY too much juice. This probably killed the first replacement alternator. You're lucky it didn't fry the battery too. What you are describing since you replaced the alternator and voltage regularo together sounds about normal. If the 75 Z has the same charging circuit as my 70, then the ampmeter movement sound about right. The external voltage regulators are rather crude and don't regulate the voltage as well as new ones. My ampmeter jumps all over when I run the blinkers or any large accessory. It should sit a little on the plus side when it is not moving around, and a little on the negative side could be nothing or it could mean your alternator quit working. You know what this could be? Dirty battery posts (or a bad cable). Believe me I have seen it more than once. Pull the battery cables and wire brush both parts, even if they look clean. Then hook up a voltmeter so you can see it as you drive. As long as the voltmeter shows around 14 volts you should be OK. My worry is you might have some type of intermittent short circuit that is grounding out the altermator causing it to burn up diodes. The problem may have been with your old voltage regulator, but with a 30 year old car you could have a chaffed wire almost anywhere in the car. Good luck.

Not to be a PITA, but the $10K car was really a $0 car. Being stolen it was worth absolutely nothing. The old saying "if it looks too good to be true.." is certainly illustrated by this story. The idea that an absolutely flawless car could sell for half the average price of comparable cars should have told that guy everything he needs to know. Now if you want to compare a 3 year old M3 that isn't the product of a chop shop to a 3 year old vette, then you have an apples to apples comparison. New they are both $50K cars. The Z06 weights in at 3140 pounds. I was a little suprised. That is not that horrible in this day and age. Especially when the 350Z with it's smaller everything comes in around 3500#. Get the vette, strip off the AC, airbags and leather seats and I bet you could get that thing down to the same weight as most of the 280's on this site. Add a cam and some forced induction.....

This particular M3 was also bondo'd together (literally) from 3 stolen M3's. That is why the guy was so quick to overlook all the problems. The car was selling for way under what even run down used M3's sell for.

If you want a vette then why not buy a vette ? I am not trying to be a smart ass or disrespect anyone, but this is something I struggle with in planning out some of my intended Z car mods. It seems like my list of "if I could only afford it" upgrades makes me wonder if I am just trying to build a vette. At which point I ask why not buy a damaged vette and strip off enough creature comforts to get the weight closer to what a Z with chassis reinforcements will weight. And don't say "but then it wouldn't be a Z" because at some point grafting Z body panels on a vette chassis says the same thing. Besides, most of the vette front and rear set ups look like they will add a good bit of weight. I will be very interested when some of the on going projects get complete enough to get on a scale.

My neighbor says he will sell me a new Z06 in the $50-$60K range. According to this site http://www.rsportscars.com/eng/cars/bmw_m3.asp a new M3 lists at just under $50K. Compare the M3 to the Z06 by looking at this site http://www.z06vette.com/01.php The M3 is 300 pounds heavier, has 50 less HP (at 7900 RPM!!) and downright skinny tires compared to the vette. No question which car I would rather have. Of course I probably would not look as cool with the Seattle Starbucks crowd.

My wife is an ebay addict and as such is on a first name basis with the UPS guy. We have had damaged goods delievered and UPS has always made good. Make sure you save as much of the original package as possible. They do pay the shipper because that is the one they have the contract with. A little scary with an ebay shipment, but sounds like you will have no problems.

We have lost so many posts when we went to the new software. There was a thread some time back detailing the steps needed to precisely locate the pivot point to eliminate bumpsteer. The only thing I can't remember was the role of "bumpsteer spacers", those MSA spacers that bolt onto the bottom of the strut housing. If I remember right, the spacers really don't correct bumpsteer, but on a lowered car are necessary to retain the correct camber gain curve (whatever that means). The upshot is a lowered car may need both the bumpsteer mod and the spacers. What I do remember is how to compute the relocation point because the idea makes sense. The idea was to put the car on jack stands and remove the front springs. This allows you to move the front suspension through it's full range of travel. With the front tires removed, connect some type of device that allows you to measure the change in front toe as the spindle in moved up and down. Some guys were doing it with dial indicators, I figured attaching a laser pointer to the brake rotor and tracing the dot along the garage wall would work best. Just move the front spindles up and down while tracing the dot to make a line on the wall. If you do this for both sides, measuring the distance between the two lines will tell you how much the rotors point in or out as the suspension travels up and down. What you then need to do is, by trial and error, move the lower pivot point in and out, up and down, while redoing the test. Once the lines go up and down the same distance apart, that is where you want to place the new pivot point. I would take a rod the diameter of the control arm bolt and sharpen both ends to a point. This could then be placed in the control arm bushing, and the cross member C clamped against this to hold everything while the test is being done. Theoretically, JTR did just this when then came up with their "7/8 up, 1/4 out" (or what ever the exact numbers were). I would think that once it is figured out for one Z, then it should be true for all Z's. BTW, the thread also said Datsun purposely mislocated the pivot point to try and compensate for all the rubber isolators they put in the front end.

Maryland puts non OBDII cars on treadmills and runs them at speed. I could see that triggering boost. OBDII cars only get the error codes read and get to skip the treadmill. Thus for OBDII cars adjusting the turbos won't do squat. But don't know why a turbo car with low boost would be any more capable of passing emissions than a N/A car. I mean, turn off the boost and that is essentially what you are left with. Now if you were to replumb the turbo so the excess boost is pumped into the exhaust, then you would be pumping so much clean air into the exhaust that the fart sniffer will read very low levels. Your only problem then might be the visual inspection. Remember, the solution to polution is dilution.

The early 240's came from the factory without rear sway bars, so no, it won't behave funny. It won't corner as flat either. JTR says to remove the rear bar on V8Z's without LSD because the bar tends to lift the inside rear tire allowing the torque of the V8 to spin the inner wheel more easily.

I wonder if it was the Ferrari lawyers. The car had Ferrari badges all over it.

I was eyeballing an LT4-ZF6 set up on ebay a while back. I did a search (back before the software switch when half the posts got lost) and determined the ZF6 as not a good match for a Z conversion. The tranny is expensive, the clutch is something odd (and also expensive) and repair parts are even more expensive yet. There was only 1 guy who was trying to install a ZF6 and he came to a dead end with the shifter came up somewhere in the middle of the driver's seat. He showed pictures, but I never did find a post on how he resolved the issue. The best advice I got for the LT4-ZF6 package was to sell the ZF6 to some vette guy doing a restoration and buy a T56. The transmissions are worth big $$ to the guys that have to have them.

I always thought 0 offset wheels were recommended for the Z

Man, excellent link! Perfect for a FAQ page. That site said to not reuse the R180 halfshafts with the R200. Not the way I did it and no problems in many years of driving. Last, the 69 through early 72's had the diff mounted further forward. This requires grabing the longer driveshaft and turning the front diff mount around 180 degrees. Including this info would make this a perfect FAQ answer.