Pop N Wood

When I was 15 it was intercepting Dad's Olds Vista Cruiser on the way to the salvage heap and trying to make that bad boy go fast. That made me start buying all the Hot Rod issue pontificating about the under appreciated performance potential of the big block Olds motors. Then one day, after burning up the 425 CI big block I transplanted to the Olds, I managed to buy a convertible 69 Camaro with a whopping 230 CI 6 banger. From there on my performance dreams were whatever Chevy parts I could dream to put into that car. From your venacular it looks like you feel the furture of hotrodding is being decided by the 15 year olds. In that sense not much has changed. No legitimate 15 year old can afford an 800 HP anything, so their first car is usually whatever cast away Mom and Dad let them use. Hence Honda's and other rice racers. Looking around my neighborhood I guess the next generation will be hotrodding minivans and SUV's. Have to wonder if the V8 will disappear again like it did in the late 70's. Today's V8's are better than ever, but there are really so few cars using them compared to the early 70's.

Seems like if you have enough money for wire wheels, you have enough for a second set of track tires mounted on lightweight performance wheels anyway. It is nice to have a dedicated set of track tire/wheels to get the more agressive tire compounds.

I would imagine they are looking for career officiers. If you look at it as "putting your life on hold", then it probably isn't the right line of work for you.

You probably should have reposted your symptoms from that first post. Do you have the factory chin pan installed? The early Z's had a turbulence problem underneath the vehicle that disrupted the airflow through the radiator and caused them to overheat at speed. I put one on my otherwise stock Z and it made a difference. My understanding of the cowl hoods is exactly as you say. The base of the windsheild is a high pressure area and will force air into the engine compartment at speed. The middle of the hood should have some nice, smooth airflow which I would think will cause a low pressure region to extract air from the engine compartment. If I were you I would not put holes in both places. Other wise couldn't it just recirc the air? The last HybridZ word of warning is to make sure your lower radiator hose has the spring inside of it so it doesn't collapse with engine speed.

That hind quarter shot of that first Z made me wet myself. Man, my car has along way to go.

This is the thread that made me decide to use the cuperonickle lines. There are other posts about how hard stainless steel line is to form without some high $$ tools. So the 90-10 stuff seemed like a good way to go. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=111952&highlight=automec I ordered from the automec UK site in the above thread. There prices were half what the FedHill guys wanted (also linked in the above thread). But with $20 UK taxes and $66 shipping it was only modestly cheaper ordering from the UK site. My worry now is delivery time from the UK. Let's see how long it takes to get here. I ordered 3/16 brake line and some 3/8 inch fuel line, along with a bunch of flare fittings, for my brake, fuel and clutch lines. Both the FedHill and automec sites had good selection of fittings that Jegs and Summit don't seem to have. Wish I could find a local speed shop with bins of all the different style and size of fittings. Like mentioned in the link above, I agree that the Z brakes use M10x1 flare fittings. I had to order a few other sizes to mate with the Wilwood clutch MC, prop valve and my throw out bearing. But at only a buck or so each I hopefully got more than I will need.

Not sure if you are talking about the brake hoses or the whole system. If it is just the hoses, then MSA, Black Dragon Auto and I think Modern Motorsports as well as a host of others sell direct SS replacements for the Z rubber hoses. I got mine from MSA (http://www.zcarparts.com) If you are talking about replacing the entire system, hardlines and all, then search HybridZ for "AN fittings". You can get the M10x1 to AN-3 adapters at Jegs or Summit. This will allow you to hook off the shelf AN flex lines to the stock calipers. Check out Jegs or Summit's on line catalog. I just ordered some copper-nickel hardline and a handfull of fittings to replumb my 240's hardlines. Plan on keeping it all metric and reusing the MSA SS flex lines at each corner.

When I first bought my house in a new housing development, I use to make a circuit of all the construction dumpsters. It is amazing how much new or miscut material gets thrown out by construction crews. My wife would laugh at me, but to this day I can still go to my stock pile of OEM baseboards that the home stores quit carrying years ago.

You might want to read around. Search on solid diff mount. Experiences with solid diff mounts vary. On my 240 it was so loud I got physically ill after 10 minutes of driving. Other people had a less severe noise problem.

Don't know if I would be so worried about reinforcing that piece so it never breaks again (because it probably never will) as I would be worried about what the NEXT thing to break will be. I would do a JohnC on that thing and completely restore all the suspension bolts and parts. The blast cabinet is your friend

That is almost $1200 less than SDPC http://www.sdpc2000.com/catalog/120/products/272467/Production-LS1-Crate-Engine-Minus-ECM-Wire-Harness.htm Almost sounds too good to be true.

Electric cars have existed for years. What makes you guys think this car is going to be anymore succesfull than an EV1? The guy who wrote that article is a moron. This thing, if it even sellls 1000 units, will do absolutely zero to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Fuel cost will not be zero because electricity is expensive. The car will not be zero emmissions because it will still be charged by an electric plant fueled by some type of fossil fuel or nuclear power. Face it, all these guys did was put a bunch of lap top batteries and an electric motor in a Lotus. Big whoop. Cushman has been doing it for decades.

'You need to do less typing and more wrenching. That is the only way you will find out for sure.

Damn. Another thing to feel inadequate about.

Are you guys seeing temps climb while idling or while moving? Most guys say their electric fans never run while moving. And even when they do, the fan usually only runs on low speed. I dropped all of $18.50 at a pick and pull on a fan from a Lincoln. If you already have the wiring in place for a high current electric fan, then it doesn't sound like an expensive experiment to get a Ford two speed fan and try that out.

The top pic looks like a solid diff mount to me also Don't know what the second thing is The third thing is offset camber adjustable control arm bushings. Have something similar on the front of my 240 The last pic are strut bar mounting brackets. They bolt to the top of the strut towers and have a threaded tube that goes between them. Notice the reverse threaded heim joint.

My hand held circle saw did just fine cutting up an 8" x 3 foot piece of 3/16" plate steel. I got some pretty damn accurate cuts using a piece of angle iron as a saw guide. Just clamped it to the plate with a couple of vice grips. The Sears saw has an aluminum guard so nothing melts. I do have to wear gloves or I will burn my hand on the guard, and I do have to wait for the saw to cool sometimes.

When I was in the Navy I had a buddy who re enlisted just to get enough money to trade his TR7 for a TR8. No offense to those who really liked that car, but I can think of better things to trade 2 years of my life for.

Eh? I suppose you buy Playboy for the articles, too. Yeah, the articles.

Which is exactly why you should have pulled completely off the road and stopped to let him pass if need be. Easy to say and hard to do, believe me I know. But if you want to F with crazy people you are running a serious risk.

What I have noticed is posting varies pretty predicatably with time of day and day of the week. Monday morning (when people get back to work but still don't feel like working) is the busiest time for posts. My guess is right now the board is vacant for the same reason my office is empty, vacations.

My advice is to concentrate on making effective welds and not pretty welds. To evaluate that you need to cut a cross section of the weld and check for even penetration with no undercutting of the base material. Making the weld look like a stack of quarters will come with time and practice.

LOL. Ain't that the truth. My HF drill press has these little rocker switches on the side of the unit down behind something. Half the time I hit the light switch instead of the motor switch. I guess they figure it is just easier to get another chinaman should something go wrong. I keep meaning to splice a huge off switch in the plug line and mounting that on the front of the press where it belongs.

Can't you swap the left and right calipers to get the bleeders on top? The larger MC is practically a requirement to get the larger displacement of fluid for the larger brake calipers. It is not so much I wanted the larger diameter, it is just the smaller MC will run out of volume without it.