gnosez

So, who has swapped out their half-shafts and gone over to CVs? Have you experienced problems after doing so? I switched over to 300ZXT CVs using M-MSports companion flange adapter (for 280 stub axles) for my R200 (3:90 quaife) diff. The first set of CVs were aftermarket (AutoZone) and they destroyed the pinion gear due to the fact that one side (driver) had a longer shaft than was required. On lowered 240Z this extra 3/8 - 1/2-inch was all it took to push the ring gear into the pinion and wear it down in under 200 miles of highway driving. I took my Z out today for the first time in 4 months (the roads here in New England still have salt on them - #@!*&^%) and I found myself paying more attention to potential diff noises and less on enjoying a ride in a real car. Am I the only one who has had this problem?

Back many years ago when I mixed paint for a Ferrari dealership outside of NYC, we carried a wax that promised a 3% increase in speed. The VERY small print noted that you could do 206mph using the wax instead of 200mph without the wax. Of course the catch was you had to have a car capable of getting to 200mph in the first place.

Thanks. I have no idea how I missed that thread but it will be added to this year's list of things to do. I had been re-positioning the float before and after AX events and that seemed to help a bit but on real tight technical courses (read Miata) it would stumble no matter what float level it was set at. Rebello had my engine back last year and now I wonder why this wasn't part of the rebuild. Oh, well.

I had a set of ZTherapy 2-inch SUs on my 3.0L and they were just about set and forget. By talking with ZTherapy before hand they matched the needles to my application and location. When I went up to a 3.2L stroker I added 44mm Mikunis as the SUs just couldn't let in enough air. They sound and operate dam near perfect and are pretty close to set and forget as is possible. That said the SUs were better at doing an autocross course due to the side-to-side movement of fuel, which unless you add a baffle to the Mikunis causes you to go lean on hard left hand turns. I have yet to replicate that problem on the street, doing The Tail of the Dragon or on a roadcourse set-up.

I will retain the rear "BRE" style spoiler for now but realize that as I increase the front down force I will be in turn increasing the rear up force. My plan is not to make a very deep (read that as low to the ground) chin since road conditions, speed bumps and the like would make it near impossible to keep it from getting cracked. The idea to to limit within street-usage reason the amount of air getting under the car. If this was a track only vehicle I would mount expendable rubber strips to the air dam and sides. As to brake ducting, I will have optional ports on each side of the radiator duct should the need arise. The chin itself will not have any openings. And unless something else comes up I will be at the Tail again this year.

As an owner of a 240 w/ an aftermarket g-nose I found that by simply closing the gap from the nose to the radiator support wall made a difference in how the car handled in the 100+mph range. I did this right after the seeing the results of the wind tunnel tests. My nose did not have the OEM style funnel shaped inner piece that directs air to the radiator. At speeds below 100, I couldn't really feel a difference. From 100 to 130 it was doable but still a bit flighty in the front end. Once I remove the nose next week to put on the headlight covers, I will build a completely enclosed box to funnel air to the radiator (similar to the ones in Alan's great pictures from the '70s). I also plan on making a removable FG lower chin spoiler shaped like a "C" with a small leading bottom edge. This will give me a bit more downforce in the front but still allow me to drive the car on the street. It will be in the mode of the C4 corvette front lips that were recessed under the nose of the 89-90 versions. Without the ZG flares and with the 225s on the front I realize I will not be able to lower the drag effects from the sides of the front tires but I have no desire to go that route style-wise.

Courtesy Nissan sold me a complete (all the different colors) last year.

In the next few weeks, Z-Ya, Roostmonkey and I will be making molds of the front and rear spoilers and (we hope) the fender flares from the BSR 280Z. We have experienced friends who will be guided us through the process but we don't expect to be the ones making any of the parts that would come out of these molds. We plan on subbing that out to a very competent FG person. Should it all work out we will be back and let you know what we can provide.

This sounds very similar to the issues with the 300ZXT CVs I and others have been having. I suspect that the remand folks don't do much quality control and end up mixing up the left and right side shafts. I was also thinking that it also may not be as critical to have the wrong size/side shaft in your Z31, but have to rethink that theory for 280ZXs. All I can say, after toasting a perfectly good 3:90 ring set with new bearings, in less than 150 miles is, DO NOT use the wrong shafts!

After replacing my remand CVs with a set of OEM units I have had no problems at all and the gear oil is free of any metal bits. I will try and have the remand set redone to the same size as the OEM units once I put my Z up for the winter. Do Not use a left side remand CV without checking the length!!! It could cost you a ring set and some bearings.

Yes, the diff fits in there all the way. It's not the quaife it's the CVs (or actually one of the CVs) that is wrong. The portion of the CV that is inserted into the diff is the right length on both sides, the shaft however is too long by 1/2 inch which means it puts pressure on the ring gear (and carrier bearings), which in turn pushes the ring gear into the pinion. Hence, if you use a bad CV you end up trashing a good 3:90 ring set. I'll be returning the reman CV once I get back home....

Roost - thanks, it looks like the OEM longer side is 0.50 inches shorter than the reman version. And no, just because it locks into the diff doesn't mean it you got it in the right side. The Quaife unit input shaft internal lengths are the same and are in fact deeper than the shaft itself.

Can someone post the total (compressed) length of a set of OEM 300ZXT CVs? Thanks. I don't want to re-install my reman set until I know for sure they are the right size.

Since I just destroyed a perfectly good 3:90 ring and pinion set after installing the M-M companion flanges and a set of aftermarket reman 300ZXT CVs, I too am very concerned that this doesn't happen again. They went after only 150 miles of highway driving. Besides the time and efforts there's the added cost of carrier bearings and the fact I just can't drive my Z when the weather is great and I have the time to do so. I could have installed the CVs backwards but I don't think I did and after the latest breakdown, I checked three ways to heaven to make sure I had them in on the right sides. I also have a problem with the caps popping off. The bearing swap-over was simple and straightforward. I have noted that the recess that is machined into the M-M flanges are deeper than the extended lip on the reman CVs. I ended up cutting a thin metal plate that I inserted in the recess to make up the difference. I took them off tonight and the caps were sit on. The reason I took them off was that after 50-70 miles on the new diff set-up I wanted to do 2 things: 1) drain the gear oil and see if I had gray metal paste in the bottom of the diff ( it seems the pinion is no quite as robust as the ring gear), and 2) measure each side of the compressed CVs to check against a set of OEM CVs that Roostmonkey has. The oil had some fine gray filings but that could have been left over from the insides of the Quaife. The measurements I took were 15.75 (Passenger side) and 16.75 (Driver side). For yucks I called Courtesy this morning and asked for price and availability for a set of OEM CVs. As Butch was waiting for his computer to tell him they were NLA, he told me that if they were the cost would be $1,000. a side. We laughed and I told him my wife was going to be very pleased that they were NLA, even if she has no idea what NLA means. I'll post the results of the check between the reman and the OEM CVs lengths tomorrow. I hate driving down the road with one ear tuned to the next grinding sound.

As the co-owner and driver of what we call the "club" race car with Z-YA, let me second the vast improvement in the way our 240 now handles. No need for a rear sway bar, flat in all the turns, and no bouncing whatsoever. Now I realize the higher spring rates are a big part of all this too but without these shocks we'd be out several hundred dollars from our limited race budget. Based on everything we've seen so far I would strongly recommend a set for anyone with spring rates higher than 200lbs and looking for another answer to the 5-way adjustables. I found that the car wouldn't break loose until the slip angle on the tires was overcome. I tried not to find the limit more than once as I had already done a 360 in a tube frame GT2 911 Porsche one of my assigned students brought with him and then like Pete I had 3 more students (12 run sessions all together).

To really get them clean you will need to take them apart. Once the inside is clean and you've polished the outside add a coat of clear which fills in minor scratches and gives them a nice shiny look. The taking apart, part, is the hardest portion of the whole process. You can paint or vacuum wrap the center strip once you have it off. The dirtiest side will be the driver's side (since it sits right above the tail pipe). Zs from the southwest will have road dust in the bottom of the lens. My first 240 had about 2-inches after 250,000 miles of travel throughout the west.

I'm reporting back info that was first provided to me by my drivetrain specialist, an ex-racer and someone who's been doing trannies and diffs for over 35 yrs. I too, had a problem getting my head around this issue and so I called both Blue and TonyD to get their take on the matter. They agreed it was likely a grounding problem and TonyD said it had happened to him. I frankly wish it was something else as I just don't need another fix-it project on my Z right now. My engine is out, my struts are off having the stub axles being pressed out, my front rotors are being re-cut and I'm trying to build a front airdam for my gnose and close off the intake to the radiator. Doing a re-wiring job is the last thing I had in mind at this point of the limited driving season we have in New England. As to under lubrication, not a chance. I run my Z hard but I also make sure it gets everything it needs to stay cool, oiled, greased, lubed, etc. The bearings have small scars like etch marks.

I had an opportunity last year to be at Talladega during NASCAR's test runs and watched as drivers put their left hand up onto the window mesh as they came down the straights. Talking to one of the crew members later that night at the hotel, he said they got 1-3 mph increase from that alone and went on to say that several teams try and use mesh with smaller than allowed openings to improve their times. Several have been caught doing it seems as well. Inserts to divert the wind would seem to be a good ideal for a race car but I doubt many people would be willing to put them on a street car. Same for adding anything that makes the car so low it could catch on a speed bump or a normal New England road. I don't think we could get the SDI car on our trailer without making the ramps longer so we didn't crush the side skirts. I'm thinking snap on-snap off... As to air going into a cowl induction hood (as opposed to going out and over the windshield), I taped 5 colored pieces of thread under the cowl opening and then drove the car around the race track at speeds up to 115mph and not once did the threads ever go inwards.

Me too, but once I get a chance I'll check resistant at various points along my harness/chassis and let you know. But feel free to contact TonyD or Blue, et al for their thoughts on the matter,

Wheelman - 24 hours ago I would have asked the same question you did, but after talking with the guy who does my trannies and diff, Blue (over on zcar) and TonyD, it seems that a bad ground junction (in the main wiring harness) can and does frequently cause enough volts to travel from the chassis into the diff. The carrier roller bearings have a large number of what looks like pockmarked scars. This was a result of arcing in the diff. There was nothing else wrong inside the diff but I will replace all the other bearings and seals.

I am installing new carrier bearings in my R200 due it seems, to an over-active electrical grounding issue. Now I get to find all the ground wire points to the chassis and install a new strap and a sub-system that routes all the points to the strap.

I don't believe that the link is for a gnose (for an S30). It looks more like an airdam for a 280ZX instead.

I got the last or second to last gnose from MSA and they were 2-piece with the bottom inner lip that doesn't extend back form the front opening more than about 10 inches, which leaves a gap of about another 10 inches to the radiator support. I filled that in and added inner side skirts but will be doing a complete enclosure later this year. Now I need to get my hands on a non-ZG flare front spoiler......

I just checked my pics and those wheels are still on the BobSharp/Newman car which is sitting in a beautifully restored barn in NH.

So, those ricer mod spinner wheels were actually a good idea? Who knew.