josh817

Yes indeed. I'm sure its much more fun in the car. I've been stuck on the side lines for the past 2 years waiving flags being jealous and then making light of what the cars are actually doing. From a corner workers prospective after several hours out on the side of the track, it looks real boring. Its a given once you get into the car things are like a million times better. I checked out the other class rules that are more open and you can just tell that if you were on a tight budget you'd be spanked. Mark Donohue's first rule of thumb: Race what you can afford to win! Also, if I were able to run a 5 speed I'd make the 5th gear overdrive usable by running an even smaller final drive like a 4.38. Atleast in Grand Prix Legends thats what I do, but thats a game. :/ Then again if you did that you can say goodbye to 1st and 2nd, and 1-2-3 are your acceleration gears so thats probably stinky idea anyways. And yes, I use to race carts and those restrictions sucked. :[ Trying to fund the big boy toys now.

That poor ITS Datsun needs a five speed but I bet they don't allow it. You know, as a school student, I bet ITS would be a wonderful place to race where the money isn't flying around with the harsh rules. I'd actually have to add a bunch of stuff to my Z... I know the Z in our CVAR group has a new supposedly 250hp motor and he keeps up with the Porsche's until he has to use 4th... I'm curious if he's allowed to run a 2000 Roadster 5 speed. For our BMW 2002 everyone runs a 320i 5 speed and rear end and I have heard nothing about the rules so I assume its legal or everyone breaks it so you might as well too. The entire 2002 group besides 1 of them actually follows the weight limit. You have to ADD weight to be in the limit, its like 2100 pounds! So we say screw that, we're going to break the weight limit and lose the points but we're going break the rule so much (300-400lbs) that we will profit with the higher placement. Seeing how the BMW's are allowed to interchange heads from 320i's and gearboxes and rear ends I'm curious why the Z's aren't running even a 280z 5 speed and if a P90 head is allowed in case you don't have an E31. Just my thoughts! And yes, whoever crosses first wins so I guess if you're the slower car then take the line since the line is usually the defensive spot too unless they have enough umph to go outside. The fast line looks to have some gaps in it but if your car is faster then I guess that doesn't matter huh? Edit: ! Get a 280z in the ITS class so you can run a 5 speed, weigh in at 2505lbss for "stock" but you have to run the L-Tronic EFI... :[ Is the weight and EFI set back worth it compared to a 240z which is 2430lbs and 2 Hitachis with a 2.4L motor? Hmmmmmm. Your video has intriqued my intuitive mind, good sir. ITS sounds rather boring though if you can't port, I like everything else. http://cms.scca.com/documents/Club%20Rules/09%20GCR/ITCS.pdf

Anonymous swayed the voting for Times 100 Most Influential Person: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/04/4chan-time-moot.html I'm not part of that crowd ever, I'm just a frequent visitor. >_> Never seen anything adult on this site that I'm aware of. I have on Myspace and Facebook though where it says "Want to meet a new friend" and you're sitting there in boxers eating Taco Bell saying "Hell yah, I need a friend right now"....... Then you realize the girl in the picture that's suppose to swoon you has naked pictures all over the internet and you feel cheated, violated, and let down but at least you still have your Taco Bell Double Beefy Cheesy ****ty Burrito for only $.89! Score!

Guys you don't even want to see my history. I use to take the time out to delete everything until the temporary internet files sky rocketed from 21000 to 44000. Turning 18 was a glorious moment I would say, or maybe it was because I started visiting 4chan's /b section... >_>

Patrick and John are crazy anyways so I had a feeling I was being fed a line but he kept a serious face for everything so it was like oh god. Both of them carried guns while waiving flags and they both are horribly rich to the point that they own maybe too much stuff, including women. I know John has his FIA flag waiving license, claimed the Audi intake thing but maybe he just helped with it, he's a first responder with his purple pt cruiser (I know thats true because he has all the equipment and lights for it), apparently either owns THE car or the rights to the Jagermeister Porsche because the guy with the psychodelic 911 in our club showed up with a Jagermeister paint job and John apparently claimed he sold/allowed/however that works to the dude, he went to like Florida university or something because he mentioned that he's proud of his sons being in the same fraternity as he was and they still know how to throw good parties. I'm going to find a last name! Oh and he lives out in the middle of nowhere in some little town in Texas. Something like Dripp or Drop or something pertaining to water falling if I do recall.

:/ I'm doing UTA and wanted to go for aeronautical. I guess I could do engineering then jump into A&M for my masters because I want that ring. There is a race May 16th and some of the flag workers there are stupid rich. Last guy I worked with was John something and I'm not sure if he was making it up but apparently he helped design the Lemans Audi intake and stuff which is crucial for the entire motor. Apparently he designed some sort of header for the Porsche's in our club that actually works really well, all of the "I did this and I did that" makes me curious if he really did. He also owns a shop and deals with Porsche's and bragged about some jagermeister porsche he has. My point is that he's awfully wealthy, a respected name in the industry AND in the clubs like PCA and our CVAR. Maybe he will be at these next races and I can ask him some stuff. I wonder if anyone on here knows him. He's good friends with a dude who looks kind of like him, Patrick. they both have long pony tails, smoke, do flag work for the big boys in the SCCA and FIA. Can't think of their last names. Anyways yah maybe he can throw in some ideas but I am still suspicious whether what he said was even true really.

You will drive my baby around your neighborhood and see the glory, good sir.

I agree, thats why I'm trying to get a collection of books that aren't necessarily all Datsun. For instance, my physics teacher took several harmonic and fluid motion courses in college so seeing if I could buy his book and then apply that some way with the motors would be nice. I need something thats almost special rather than just building regular motors. Dave Rebello knows something I don't know obviously since he is pushing lots of power through the same displacement and if I were to ask him about his tricks he would probably give me a blank stare. That sort of thing. For $15/hr you won't be getting secret tricks of the trade like his, is all I can say. Yah I plan on learning some crazy stuff that other people don't know but prices still wouldn't change until I would be on my own working with my own tools in my own shop. I think people are misunderstanding what I'm saying because right now I love $15/hr and I have no intensions on charging more if I'm to be honest AND I also think that rate is damn cheap comparitively speaking. Also, when I said long hair I meant like its enough to comb nicely, not like ponytail. As for being quiet an well mannered, absolutely. However, there are some exceptions. When you're doing restorations for people, you work on their have their cars for maybe a year or two at a time, they regularly stop by to see how everything is going and chit chat. Dad is a horrendous talker, you have to pull him away from the people otherwise car talk will last for days. With all that happening, his customers generally become his friends and some are good friends, well good enough to receive a key to the shop so they can come in and do work on their own cars if they really felt like it. This is why on Saturday, you don't plan to get any work done because people stop by all day long, its like a mini car show and they will interupt your work and if you plan a list of things to accomplish you are just asking for frustration. Yes we have car shows and all sorts of stuff going on at the shop every once and a while. Dad does a lot of stuff I'm not even aware of like attending the club meetings, editor of the newsletters, gives lectures about oil and whats the right stuff to use blah blah blah. When he draws the attention of people to atleast stop by and check out the cars thats when its my opportunity when they see a cool little 2000 Roadster with nice centerline wheels and a nice paintjob, after all, most everyone of that generation knows what a Datsun is. Business is booming for Dad but if I want my name I have to get my butt in gear which is why I am here to see what I can do and how I can approach this. The office holds all of our trophies and awards really. I think its important to have your customers winning photos and then your race history if there is one because it really helps the confidence of the customer knowing that you had/still are out on the track doing your thing and you know what racing is all about. Dad has lots of trophies, I have my little awards from kart racing, and we also have all these nifty race posters and autographs and stuff. Some good pictures of us out on whatever track, and then the customer stuff here and there. One important thing to note though is while thats all cool, its not Datsun. I have my Z and that roadster and the owner of the roadster I will probably never hear from after I'm done with his motor unless he needs like a tune up or valve adjust beause all that jive is magic to him. I'll make a video walk through of the shop next time I'm there. And Attworth, when my car is back on the road I'll be stopping by your place, check out any parts you may have, and then we could go to the shop if you want.

I'm not sure what this Nason paint is. The primer is Nason 491-17 but it doesn't say whether its acrylic or lacquer. Bah! I did a google search and I saw a thread from some other forum saying don't use this etch primer over any body work or else it will cause tons of problems. :[ I shot the first coat to cover the metal, doing the body work, then I was going to shoot a second coat over everything, sand, and do my sealer. Looks like I'll have to trade my stuff in for regular primer. Yes, I went in and asked for Epoxy primer and she gave me Etch primer saying its roughly the same thing. Apparently the Etch primer has acids in it that will rape my Dynaglass/any bondo I put over the dynaglass to feather. BAH! Now I have to go back over there because I'm checking all the tech sheets for my paint and I'm seeing that this Nason Ful Base B/C requires a reducer and a TINY bit of activator.. I was charged $9 for it but it is not in this box.

want me to build you a motor since you're local?

Yah a lot of the new customers that come by the shop don't know much at all. Dad's customers consist of guys that don't want to do the work but could if they wanted to,guys that have no idea how to do the work so we do it for them, and guys that go to him because they know he is good and affordable and they wouldn't like to venture off into trying to do the work themselves. The owner of the Spitfire wound up breaking 3 things trying to get one part on his car along with getting frustrated. He's helpless when it comes to doing work himself which kind of annoys people at the track so what I do is PFM to him. The Roadster guy doesn't know anything about these cars since he's always paid others to do it for him so when Dad was like "Oh yah he can do a crazy stroker L4 blah blah blah" he believed it. I'm not one of those dudes who likes to talk his customers into expensive **** or say something which is false so when everything is done I want him to drive the car, wow it, and then inform him that the L4 couldn't be done because this car runs a totally different motor but the job was still taken care of. Then again for $3000 doing an SR20 conversion may be possible if you skimp but I think he is wanting to preserve the car. It was the only thing he kept after getting divorced in California apparently so its his baby. I usually like to sit down with the people and show them all the text and products from catalogs, tell them what everything does and show them the prices, they decide for themselves because thats how it should be rather than lying and scaring customers into buying high dollar crap. Yes, thus the reason why I want to do what Dad did and just be the dude who works out of a shop and does good work but isn't a business. This way I can just call it off if my life seems to take a dive bomb. Pregnancy, already went through a scare with that but no one knows and the scare wasn't even something to be scared about. Erratic cycles + her mom knowing exactly when she should be and then asking a week later if she had started yet = scare, family "talk", and then next day later she has her period. Fail. Really all of shop cars are Triumphs. He's just known as the Triumph guru after having experience in racing them and blowing up his own motors blah blah blah. He does have a little '39 midget with all the history on it but I think he's trying to sell that. I think once he starts getting that kit car coming into the states he will have a real shop car. He set a side an old block, ported head, and rods that had done a long time ago to build a killer motor for his own kit. He's notorious for boring out those blocks by over 1/4" and sleeving them and then letting everyone race the old motor he did that was supercharged. Most of his customers are his friends so he likes to do the whole "I bet I can build you a motor thats has more power than that car and if its not I'll pay for it." or you know like I bet I can get you better brakes that sort of crap. Yes, I document everything and make like a CD album which goes off to customer in the end. I don't like to think I'm giving away business but I prefer to teach the clueless people into doing their own work. I won't give away any "secrets" but I will try to get customers to see how everything works especially if they show interest, this way if they feel bold enough one day to tackle the job themselves they can. I don't really like the business card but it is what it is. Any thoughts? Also another cool idea would be to start up a Z shop somewhere where there isn't any other Z shop around. Right now there is a guy in Arlington already that people really depend on, hell I depend on him for some quarky parts. I'd really hate to be a turd and make competition for him. I guess the plan for now will be just keep on tooling. I'll see if anyone local is on here or classiczcar and maybe they will be interested. I had mentioned my work in some of my posts a while ago and I received some hits by first time posters which never really got serious they just kind of talked like they were interested. Once the Spitfire is race ready and once the Datsun is finished, I'm out of work and technically according to the government, I'm unemployed. I may get a summer job at a golf course because I CANNOT afford to have no income. I'm already wrestling Dad to write me a check for last months work. I don't like how he handles the financial part of my customers. They send him the money and then he takes forever to order the parts and some days I question whats going on. I have already set up an account for myself so in the future I will handle things. I would really like to order parts under my own name and get have the shop discount they give you so you can charge regular catalog prices but make like 5% profit from it or something.

Well I do have some of that red putty which is used for like small pin holes and sands really nice but shrinks a lot. I could just run a bead and feather it in. Honestly, I don't care about the dogleg and how I took care of it. This paint job will probably start to peel in 3 years and thats ok with me, just get me through college and once I have a job but no hopefully no family to take care of when I'm like 23, go out and do it the right way, along with a new motor by that time too. I think it should hold up anyways. This Dynaglass is pretty much just a fiberglass patch but in filler form. Its really tough and hard compared to bondo which makes it really crappy to sand like you said but it should hold up. When I added a ton of it to the rusted through portion it was bulging out the back into the wheel well so I spread it out inside of there this way it can't pull out. It will have to crack and crumble itself out. Oh and besides, if it crumbles out of the dog leg area in two years I wouldn't really care anyways because its down low and out of sight a bit. I think you saw the car before all of this, it had greasy hand prints and paint falling off all over the place. Gottah keep some sort of personality to the car before I get old and mature and try to make it look perfect.

Yah I basically have been planning on where to mount the VR sensor. Megajolt, I guess like Megasquirt since its the same people, has a very detailed step by step installation guide with pictures and everything so wiring is easy. The serious work is getting the sensor mounted and then I can adjust the missing tooth on the trigger wheel to line up with it, send it off to the machine shop where they will press it onto the 2nd row of my damper and I guess balance it if it needs it. During this time I've been looking for information on basic principles/theories of ignition systems. I see on the MS section peoples ignition tables but most everyone is running a forced induction system. Just weird quarky things like why is it that when the TPS reads say 10% throttle @7000 RPM the timing spikes from lets say 36º to 48º. I've gotten a TON of help from BRAAP and he has explained a lot about flame fronts and how all this stuff will work so I owe many thank you's to him. I'm actually surprised he even responds to my PM's.

Well nothing has happened to my motor but then again it hasn't racked up tons of miles yet. :] I know the way my dad got started was building motors for friends in the garage. Personally, I think $15/hr is next to nothing especially when you consider that 10-15 hours of work is all that is really needed, maybe not even that, to build a basic motor. My stroker took me 2 months but thats because I had waited for parts and had to wait to get money for more parts. If I have everything sitting there ready to go it doesn't take much at all other than extreme attention to detail for quality sake. If it takes 10 hours thats only $150 in labor plus parts which I don't think I would mark up from catalog prices for right now. I just really enjoy building motors. I loved doing mine but all the spending I had done kind of poopoo'd the excitement. If I can build hot motors for people, make money, please them, have fun, that would be really cool. I do need to try out different products. I know dad guarantees every street motor he builds as long as he buys the parts since he goes to places he knows produce quality parts. If the customer brings in their own stuff, for instance a customer brought in their own oil pump and then they wound up blowing the bearings from oil starvation after the pump failed, dad will not fix that free of charge. For race motors, anything goes, **** happens. Some of his customers race in CVAR which attend tracks around here so he will usually attend the first race weekend on the motor with the customer at the if they are new to things and need help. Any time after that we plan on charging $150 per weekend because if we attend the races, we will do flag work which pays $150 for two days. This way we don't dump money into driving several hours to each track on our own pockets. Maybe I should setup base prices for labor on certain things. For instance, I can lighten, balance, and polish rods but that takes a lot of labor (20 hours for mine I think) which you can't really charge fully for otherwise its stupid expensive so you say I'll do the rods for $200 or whatever, I think Dad does the same when he ports heads however I am not going to try and port someone elses head for them. I'm finding that most of the time I'm working, I like a set amount of labor hours/set charge. Work on the Spitfire for most of the stuff takes less than what the factory labor guide says by like half an hour, maybe a full hour. There are also times like the other day ago where it was my first time to put on steering rack boots and I wrestled the damn things for 2 hours and I can't charge him 2 hours for... boots... Maybe do what we did with the Spitfire guy, give them the option of your set price or an hourly price and then tell them your honest opinion on what would be cheaper.

Warning: Large post below, read with caution to avoid literary meltdown. Alright so my dad is finally getting serious with his shop. He has had his shop for almost 10 years and has been building race engines and doing restorations for the British car lovers for like a side job just for fun sort of thing. He's earned himself a respectable reputation of the Triumph Guru around here and apparently Kas Kastner fancies his work too and sometimes they mingle with each other like typical old school racers. So thats the pre-story. Now that I have my Z as a first car and I'm generally such a cheap bastard, I figure why pay someone to do something I can probably do, which uh.. really helped out when I built my motor and the only thing I had to pay someone else for was machine work which was $400 for everything. I try to keep costs down as much as possible without sacrificing reliability or performance. I am now working as like his right hand man at the shop for $15/hr. I like it, and he likes it because we get to spend time together. We just finished making his business card and he's starting up as a distributor here in the states for some Fiarona kit car. He's expanding, and I sure as hell would like to expand with this $15/hr deal. Its better pay than any other 18 year old I know and I beat ALL the competition, the closest would be Dad and he does $45/hr, next up are some other guys with $60-$90 depending on the work. I still want to work under Dad's business so I can build up the shops reputation but I'd like to be "That guy who builds killer motors" rather than "Ed's son who needs a hair cut and drives a Z car". I have two customers currently, one of them I do general maintenance and race prep. on his Spitfire. Dad does the really particular stuff like welding the diffs and building the motors for him while I just do suspension and the hard labor wrench hand stuff which is only because the customer can't afford anything more than what I charge. Actually he was so stubborn to pay an 18 year old kid $15/hr and tried to talk me down to $9/hr. Second customer is a Datsun 2000 Roadster which needs a new motor. I would LOVE this except Dad spoke for me while he was woo-ing in the customer. The car had been sitting at another shop for over a year and hadn't been touched so Dad told him about my motor and told him I could do a performance motor for him for $3000 thinking that the Datsun 2000 Roadster ran an L4 motor... Its a U20 motor where parts are retardedly priced (oil pump is $500 since they stopped making them and the people who hoard them charge that price). I'll be lucky to walk away from this thing with a profit once we're done... So I'm not sure if I should do like all sorts of work and specialize in Datsun stuff or what. I have British cars, a BMW, Datsuns, and even my physics teacher is interested in having me rebuild him a Honda motor. I'm not sure how to go about building a reputation though. I mean I can build that Roadster motor, give people rides in my Z, maybe post in the Vendors section on here but there has to be something that grabs peoples confidence. Right now handing their work over to an 18 year old who barely charges anything doesn't really sound to great. I know if I wore my HybridZ appearel at the shop they can see that I'm serious, since we all know HybridZ members mean business but never do work without a beer within reach although I prefer a margarita. I attend our vintage racing club events (CVAR) and have become a known person to the guy who runs an ex CP 240z but I think he already has a high budget performance builder by the looks of his lap times... Sometimes Dad's buddies will invite us to track days with all the British cars and stuff so that will be good especially now that I'm doing paint and body work so my car doesn't look trashy. I think the main thing I need right now would be people to do business with because the finished product that you send off at the end of the day acts as advertising, drawing in more customers. Right now my aim is more for street cars that just want a good performing motor rather than some crazy 400hp race motor. Obviously the guys with an unlimited/large budget will go to the people who have a reputation at hand. Suggestions anyone?

So speaking of straight pipes, I know old IMSA NA Z's had like megaphone tips on their dual 2.5" pipes correct? This is a big time aid in the scavenging effect so here comes the question, for my motor (the larger ones of our L6's) with the ported head and moderately radical cam I have a Cyclone header fixing to go on: Courtesy of Frank Honsowetz How to Modify your Nissan/Datsun OHC Engine This sort of applies to both open pipes and a muffler of some sort, do you run the two collectors into one 2.5" pipe, maybe 3" pipe, or do you run dual 2.25" pipes. If you want each firing cylinder to alternate collectors (1-2-3 and 4-5-6 per collector firing order 1-5-3-6-2-4) to air in the scavenging effect, then I'm not sure why you would merge the two collectors into one pipe. Doesn't that just make your 6-3-2 header into a 6-3-2-1 AKA 6-1 header pretty much..? I see Zredbaron has a single 2.5" pipe and his head is from Sunbelt so the port job is of high quality, but then I heard somewhere from like Rebello or someone else who had a 3.2L that said a 3" pipe is essential. Right now my 3" pipe gives me a deep tone and at idle there is zero rasp to the idle, its more like all one tone. I would like to infer that if you can't hear a the raspiness/cylinder firing in the exhaust then that could generally mean your pipe is too big and those exhaust pulses are just mingling with each other in the pipe before they exhaust so what you hear is a purrrr rather than a lumpy sort of tone. Cancel all that talk, searchy searchy is your friend! :/ Should have known that by my own signature, shame on me.

The raspiness of the larger cam can't really be heard because my idle is high and I made the collector on the 6-1 a 3" rather than 2.5".

:/ I don't have the money for billet otherwise I would go out and buy Derek's mounts. I saw a dude who used a big 1/4 or 1/2" square steel plate. It worked for him but looked funny. I can see flat strap wobbling, there has to be something between the two thats affordable for me. PS: New problem, Dynaglass will not feather in nicely. Visually it looks good but you can feel a tiny transition between primer and filler. I have tried 500 grit and still nothing. :[ Today is not my day. EDIS-6 with Megajolt, I will not be getting new spark plug wires or anything like that. If these reach the way I want them too then its alright. Headers I was talking about in first post. This is from How To Modify Your Datsun/Nissan Engine, I do believe. The paint, oh and I also wet sanded the entire car just a real fast sweep over with 220 even though the instructions say don't sand the first coat of etch primer, there was some dirt in there: Hood before I sanded: After I tried feathering the edges, there is still that little blip. Maybe I try a palm sander or am I being too anal? The primer feathers real nice, Dynaglass, unless thats feathering, does not. Surprise!!!!! Datsun confetti with Datsun rock! Not to proud of what I had to do...: :/

Megajolt system. I already bought one and built it. I chose TPS over MAP since I did the port work myself on this head and I doubt all the ports match, plus a moderately radical cam. I see MAP systems on race cars though which run crazy cams and they have a conversion setup to turn my TPS into a MAP. The board has a spotmark for tps components and another spot for map so I't probably as easy as cutting a trace to the TPS and installing the MAP components if I wanted too. I didn't buy the system to have my own advance setup though, the idea was to have an accurate spark at the higher rpms, rev limiter, ability to change my timing but not make the curve dead on (otherwise I would go ahead and convert over to MAP), and Megajolt provides like 3 or 4 ports for 0-1V inputs plus a 0-5V input. Wideband sensors are 0-5v's :] and the system allows you to log data so I can record a wideband reading along with my ignition and rpm's. I have a knock sensor from the old motor and I'd like to install that too but it needs to be 0-1v and I have no idea what the output of a knock sensor is. If it is 0-1v then that means I can setup like an advance correction so when the knock sensor "feels" something the timing will retard until its gone. I'm so stoaked about it! Maybe once I figure all this stuff out I can gain the confidence to try out FI. The whole idea of this motor was to avoid massive wiring and all that stuff I never understood about MS. As for the front cover, I think the seal around the damper will be fine as long as I don't wrestle with it. Which I probably will... I'll tap it out with a mallet and do the same when I put it in. Radiator will need to come out and I guess at this time I will pull my oil pump and take it apart to redo the gaskets. I used this blue-ish clear adhesive thats like jellow when dried and its doing a horrible job with it dripping every now and then. PS: So I'm doing body work today and guess what I found in my passenger side dog leg... yes, obvious rust through the other side and I don't have the equipment with me at home to fix it properly so I did a nasty nasty thing. Dynaglass the entire hole, shame on me. My punishment was getting it all over my hands and it wrestling with the crap. However thats not the surprise! I found a rock, in the dog leg, which is almost the size of my palm. The dogleg didn't have a hole big enough to fit it through so obviously rust has globbed together to make a massive Datsun tumor. Perhaps this is the typical Datsun rear end clunk.

Videos of an open 6-1 header on my 3.1L First drive on the new motor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BXs1svOc5s First start up doing timing and such: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHAyvZ5CR5k Just a month ago or so, motor is broken in by now idle at 1300 RPM no video since I heard sirens where I was at after I had gotten home, don't want people to know : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbcs-Ar_eZs With a 3" pipe and muffler: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asM-MVAg9LA

Going for the new setup and I'd like to pose a few curious questions. History of motor, just built it in August, not even 3000 miles on it yet but the motor IS in the car. First thing is first, I need to take out the damper (just a regular 2 row 240 damper) because the 2nd row which isn't used will be cut off and the trigger wheel will be pressed on in its place. Now, there is the front cover seal which seals itself around the snout of the damper once it is on the crank. Should I pull just the damper and then put it back in when finished and not worry about replacing that seal because of the low miles or should I pull the entire front cover, redo the seal and all the gaskets (oil pump DOES drip a little) and during this time I can cut my distributor drive spindle. This is all fine and dandy as the front cover gasket set is cheap, but I just put new oil into this motor and I don't want left over water which sits in the water pump, even after being drained, to drip in my oil pan. I can deal with a little oil drip, that doesn't bother me one bit especially since the oil pan drips a drop every now and then from the seal not being perfect on that either. My main concern is, will that front crank seal need replacing since I am pulling out the damper. If so, then it goes in from the back and thats going to require some work at that point... Second thing is making the bracket for the VR sensor. Its going on the exhaust side to steer clear of the alternator. I'll simply use the AC holes already in the block however I'm thinking of like a long piece of angle iron to go from those holes and out to the trigger wheel. Thats cool but it needs to be rigid because I can see myself making a bracket, having the trigger wheel mounted accordingly to where the VR sensor will sit, and then finding out that every time I hit a bump the bracket wobbles just the slightest bit due to its length and my timing goes crazy at that point. In red would be the bracket: Some other cool stuff coming up is paint since I'm doing that right now, 4 wheel disk brakes which I am despiritely hopping will fit under the 14" Supra wheels I have because I don't want to go out an buy a different set, these wheels came as spares with the car (score!), and finally exhaust... again. Went out and bought a 6-3-2 header from a guy on here. Sadly no picture because its at the ceramic shop and the guy takes FOREVER! Its been there since, gosh, November?! Anyway, its a change from what I arleady have which is a cermic coated 6-1 header with a 3" pipe to the back. I wanted the 6-3-2 style plus this header has 1 5/8" primaries however they are only 22" long and I really need something in the 34" range for that low end torque. I did some reading and they show different types of headers for the L6. Apparently mine is a direct match to the "Cyclone" header which has air injection ports, 1 5/8" primaries, short primaries, 2.25" collectors. I'm not thinking its anything special since it has air injection ports on it but hey whatever. I'm sure the exhaust shop I use will love the angle that the collectors are at... Now its time to choose what setup I want for the pipe to the back whether I merge the collectors into a 3" pipe or 2.5" pipe, or keep dual pipes that are 2.25". My motor is a 3.1L with some porting done to it and a moderate cam so I'm suspicious of a 3" pipe being too big. The book calls for a 2.5" pipe, Rebello says 3" from what I remember so I don't know. I would like dual 2.25" pipes which is a good middle ground between the two but I don't know if its in my best interest to do that or if its better for me to merge them into one and aid in scaveging. I would also love a side exaust maybe but it might be a bit annoying (and I have a high tolerance for that crap) plus its not the best idea to put a 90º in your exhaust,however to go from the center of the car back to the drivers side rear you need 2 right angles, who knows! By the way shoot me a PM, don't post in here, if you are at all interested in my old exhaust. I will probably sell as separate pieces since I know the NA guys think the 3" pipe is a bit big but the turbo guys may like it. Headers would sell for like the cost of the ceramic coat plus $50 or something, it does have a 3 bolt flange on it. The pipe would sell for however much it cost me to put it in so its like $150 or something and if you want the muffler too its probably something just a little higher since I really don't care. Just have to rebound from this double spending! Look in the classifieds for it in a couple of weeks I would say. Thanks guys

>_> Made a steady 2nd and 3rd when I use to kart race back in the day but thats because 1st and 2nd (when he actually finished) place kids were running new motors and had a larger budget allowing them to go to nationals, now all I do is play computer simulations... Grand Prix Legends 3rd place at Watgens Glen on pro mode? Haha, give me your car for a weekend, lets see what can happen. Oh and I checked out the ATI site but they name everything with Super so I'm clueless, however I would say the "race" damper for a race motor right? I reread over the previous posts and I'm kind of confused now. Are you still getting the same power band but this time with the 3.1L rather than the 2.4L? I bet if you lighten things up so they are more similar to your old EP engine (like reciprocating mass, knife edge the crank as said in the previous post), things may be better, plus the damper, plus any finds you may run into if you check out the harmonics. I'm curious if there is any sort of electric motor that you could bolt up to the rear of the crank while its in the block (I guess with pistons and everything else that spins and thats balanced together) and see if you can spin it up to some high RPM's without actually having to bolt a head on and run the motor. I've seen some engine builders throw the motors on a break in machine for several hours at like 1500 RPM drawing lets just say 3 amps through the motor. They come back a couple hours later and the RPM's have bumped up to 1800RPM's with only 2.6 amps so that tells you the motor is breaking in. Get something like that but have a motor that can spin pretty fast, maybe setup a pulley like an air compressor. Those run at 3000 RPM off that motor but you also remember you aren't compressing anything without the head on the block so it should be easier to hit higher RPM's. That way you don't have to do a full assembly, you don't have to go out and run the car, and you can sit inside the shop waiting for **** to happen at whatever hypothesized RPM you think you will have problems with. It all makes sense in my head, maybe not in real life though. Just a thought.

Man I wish I could have a sponsored work/play day like you. :[

Don't think that sloppy though. Well maybe it was a dud.

I like my supra wheels :[ I would also have to get tires too. Pft.