74_5.0L_Z

First, jack up the car and support on jack stands. Remove clamps from the boots on rack. Pull boots off rack housing and slide the boots outward to expose rack shaft on both sides of housing. Next, center the rack so that the same amount of rack shaft is exposed on both sides (2.39 inches measured between the housing and inner tie rod body to be precise). The rack in now centered. If the steering wheel is not centered, then remove and reinstall in correct orientation. Adjust toe with rack in centered position described above. I have spacers that I place over the rack shaft to keep it centered during to alignment. I make absolutely sure that the rack is centered.

Please state your problem clearly and provide a little context. Otherwise no one will be able to help. Did it start acting up spontaneously? Did it start happening after a suspension modification or repair? Can you provide pictures to aid in the explanation?

Can you get the balancer behind the rack? Unfortunately, the way to improve the bump steer on an S30 is to raise the rack or lower the outer tie rod. At the stock rack height, the front suspension has a bit of toe out on bump (~0.5 deg per inch of bump). A small amount of toe out on bump for the front suspension is safe and here is why: You are driving down the road and hit a bump with one front wheel. The suspension on the one front wheel compresses and the bumped front wheel steers outward. This causes the car to slightly steer toward the bumped wheel and lean away from the bumped wheel which causes the bumped wheel to return toward it original position and the opposite wheel's suspension to compress. The overall effect is that the suspension wants to get back to its original steady state configuration. If you lower the rack 1.75 inches , the front suspension will toe in severely in bump (more than 1 degree per inch of bump). This will make the car dangerous to drive. This is dangerous because the bumped wheel will steer the car away from the bump which will cause the suspension to compress further which will make the car steer even more inward. At low speeds, you may be able to compensate with steering. However, at high speeds you will reach a point where you cannot compensate. This is called the critical speed. If you can't get the engine behind the rack, move the rack forward. If you move the whole crossmember, then you will add caster and give yourself some clearance. If you still need more room then move the rack forward independent of the crossmember. You will lose a bit of Ackermann, but you can live with that. You might not live with severe toe in during bump in the front suspension. And bump steer spacers will not help this situation at all.

If you run EMOD then rules are not a problem. Any suspension, any brakes, any engine just as long as you are not less than 1750 lbs.

One option that hasn't been discussed is the JTR mod to the front crossmember. The JTR mod relocates the attach point for the lower control arm up 3/4" and outboard 1/4" (going by memory). This will yield some negative camber and improve the camber gain on a lowered car.

I will add the caveat that much of the Chinese made car parts that I have purchased are of lower quality than similar parts that were manufactured in the US, England, Australia, Germany, or Japan. I have had specific problems with ball joints, tie rod ends, master cylinders and rod ends. A good friend of mine runs a race shop where he works on many customers vehicles. He has told me many horror stories of customers bringing him their cars and some new Chinese parts to install. He ends up spending many hours trying to get the Chinese parts to fit. Often hoe has had to tell the customer to buy a correct fitting quality part and to throw the Chinese crap in the garbage can. I agree that the quality of Chinese made auto parts is improving, but for the most part is still of inferior quality. I also don't like supporting Chinese business. They can only supply cheap parts because they pay their workers next to nothing. The Chinese also are in the habit copying designs of American manufacturers and then selling them in our market for less than the original manufacturer can produce them. Just look at the Chinese knock-offs of Edelbrock heads and intake manifolds and of Wilwood spindles. The quality of these knock-offs is very much inferior to the originals but they sell enough of this crap to hurt the people who originally design and market the product. Everyone can make up their own mind on how they want to spend their money, but I do not want to support the Chinese business practices nor do I want to hurt true innovators in the automotive performance market. I will spend the extra money on Aurora, Tilton, Crower, Edelbrock, CCW, etc...

This where I bought my Aurora rod end in the past. There may be other retailers who are more inexpensive. http://secure.chassisshop.com/categories/15342/

I have Aurora XAM-10T rod ends in my rear control arms. I have been using and abusing them since 2004. They are still tight yet move freely. I bought some cheaper QA-1 rod ends for my front tension/compression rods 3 years ago. They already have noticeable slop. I will spend the extra money to replace them with Aurora (or similar quality) rod ends in the near future. For most things in life, you get what you pay for.

Quality stuff isn't made in China. Aurora rod ends aren't made in China. Tilton, Wilwood, Ground-Control are not made in China. Koni, Eibach, and HRS springs are not made in China. If you want a nice car, make it from quality components. If you want a crap car, make it from crap components.

The wheels were made by Spin Werkes (Series 82), and were made custom to my specifications. They wheels are light, good quality, and were very reasonably priced when I had them made in 2008. Unfortunately the company has changed ownership, and I don't know if the wheels are still available or manufactured to the same standard. I only use the car for autocross and track days. The tires I have used on these wheels are Hoosier 275/35-15, Hoosier 23x9.5-15 (FA Slicks), Avon 10.5x23.0-15 bias ply slicks, and now I am trying Avon 240/600-15 radial slicks. I can't think of any street tires that would fit these wheels without looking goofy.

A 15x10 wheel is actually 11 inches wide measured at the outer edges of the rim. The lip of the rim is about 1/2 inch on each side. So yes, a 15x10 wheel with 5.5 inch backspace will have a zero offset. I have no idea if they will fit on the back of a 280ZX, but they would fit on the back of my 260Z. I have sectioned struts with coilovers and a Subtle Z body kit. I currently run 15x10 on all four corners of the car with 5.25 inch backspace. On the front I run an 1/8" spacer, but no spacer in the rear. The wheel and tire clear my rear struts by about a 5/16 inch.

I installed the MSA Flush Mount mirrors that mount to the window frame. They work really well, and took less than an hour to install (although I do admit having difficulty forcing myself to drill into a perfectly good window frame). I used them for a track day at Daytona last month and visibility was great.

When you get the opportunity, I would really appreciate some more pictures from different angles. I am getting ready for a track day, and it would be nice to know what to inspect. Thanks.

Did the crack start at the screw holes where the parking brake cables would attach? Did you have screws installed in the holes?

Pictures please.

Could we fix that by requiring a certain number of technical posts before the classified section becomes visible?

Get another set of rotors and start over. Honda Oddysey cannot be that expensive. Hopefully you didn't pay much to the hack that screwed up the last set. This should be an easy job for any decent machinist. I am spoiled though. I live down the street from a very skilled Tool and Die maker. I provide him a drawing of what I want and he gets it right every time.

I have a long nose R200 with the 3.36 gear and an old Nissan Motorsports CLSD that is shimmed really tight. I have considered swapping to a different set-up to get more gear options. However I am starting to move away from autocross and toward track days, so this will be less of an issue.

I don't use a booster at all, and I don't miss it. With a stock 7/8" master cylinder my brake system stops really well with the following components: Wilwood superlite front calipers (4 1.75" Pistons) 11.5 x 1.25 directional vane Coleman racing front rotors Outlaw 2800 rear calipers (4 1.25" Pistons) 10.5 x 0.81" rear rotors Wilwood proportioning valve Hawk HP-plus pads The car stops really well without much pedal effort. I am considering different pads because the HP-Plus are really dusty and don,t have a lot of initial bite. I have been looking into options. Any suggestions?

I use my car mostly for autocross. I have a 3.36 rear gear with 23 inch tall tires, and wish I could get something closer to 3.00. I would love to get second gear to rev to 80 mph.

Correct. I am running 500 lb/in springs on the front and have them set to essentially zero pre-load. When the car is jacked up, the spring is just barely applying force between the lower spring seat and top hat. If I were to lower the seat, the car's ride height would also be lowered. However, the spring would now be loose when the car is raised off the ground (the spring can come off its seat). It is common for people running really stiff springs to use a droop limiter to prevent the springs from becoming fully unseated when the wheels are off the ground.

Wrong. Raising the collar to preload the spring will raise the car. The height of the car is dependent upon the distance between the attachment of the top of the strut to the chassis and the spring collar below the spring. For a given weight, the spring will compress the same, but if the bottom of the spring is raised then the whole car will be raised.

Think of it this way: If you set the coil-over so that the collar just takes all of the slack out of the spring (zero pre-load), the spring will compress enough to support the weight of the car when installed. For the sake of example assume 250 lb springs, no pre-load, 600 lbs on the corner, and a motion ratio of 1. When installed and the car is resting on the tires, the spring will compress 600/250 in (2.4 inches). Now, if you pre-load the spring before installing it by turning the adjuster collar up one inch, the spring will be pre-loaded by 250 lbs. Once installed, you would have to apply 250 lbs to the strut before it begins to compress. With the same 600 lbs on the corner, the car will now only compress the spring an additional 1.4 inches. The spring itself will still be compressed 2.4 inches, but 1 inch of that was before installation. The car will sit 1 inch higher at rest. Now, take an extreme example. If you pre-load the spring 2.4 inches, then you would have 600 lbs of preload. When installed on the car, the suspension would not compress at all under static conditions. You would have raised the car 2.4 inches above the zero pre-load condition. When I ran the 250 lb springs on my car, I ran a slight preload (somewhere around an inch). Pre-loading the springs using the collars isn't easy unless you have bearings between the springs and the collar. Do yourself a favor and install these between the spring and collar. http://www.speedwaymotors.com/QA1-7888-109-Coil-Over-Thrust-Bearing-Kit,6001.html

I have one that you can have for free. Just come get it. It is not perfect, but is solid. http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/124327-centerline-wheels-koni-shocks-triple-weber-dcoe45-eibach-springs-bumpers-wipers-and-misc/

When I designed and built the headers for my car, I contemplated making 180 degree under the pan headers like you are doing. In the end, I decided that the added complexity wasn't worth the effort. One thing I found necessary was to angle the collectors inboard so that the exhaust pipes converge toward the center of the car.