gramercyjam

My pager fell in the toilet once. ME: My pager doesn't work. I think I need a new one. IT Pager folks: It doesn't work? Me: No. Them: What happened to it? Me: I don't know. It just stopped working.

Less than 5" at the seam I'm guessing. I haven't measured it but it's more like 3 1/2" to 3 3/4". My harbor freight aluminum racing jack just fits under the seam and that is supposed to be 3 1/2" at the saddle.

No pics right now. It might be 2 weeks before I get the time to take some. That was probably the least fun thing I've ever done on the car. I did have the spare tire area cut out and the quarter windows out at the time so at least I could stand back there and get some side access too while I was working. What I did was fold back the sheet metal on top of the strut tower to get access, make a cut between the strut tower and the quarter, hammer the top of the tower it flat, make a wedge to fit in the resulting gap, and weld it in. Then fold everything back and weld it up, cut out the slots on top for camber plate and drill holes to mount the plate and bolt it up. I wouldn't do that way again. If there is a next time, I'd just cut the top off the strut tower off and fabricate a new strut tower top out of 1/8 plate and weld it on. Oh and I forgot about the having to go to the opthomologist to get metal slivers out of my eye and having to work with only 1 eye for 2 weeks. Ever welded with one eye? Not fun. I have eye protection, but I cheat because I wear glasses and can't see close with them and can't see from any distance without them.

Old style ground control plates. On my '73 I actually needed to modify and extend the tops of the rear strut towers outward so I could get mount the plates in such a way that there was enough adjustment to take out the excessive camber.

Jon, I was gonna do camber plates first about a year ago, bought them, and then thought better of installing them right away. I'm glad I waited. Initally, people want the plates to add camber to the car. What happened in the evolution of my car is after lowering, I had more camber than the tires (Hoosier bias ply slicks) could handle and if I had installed the plates to add camber earlier, the plates would have been located such that I wouldn't have enough adjustment to take out the excessive negative camber.

FWIW, I think that buying the Illuminas are a mistake. Go with the Koni 8610s, they aren't that much more but are a better shock. I think you'll be happier with them in the long run. You will want to go with stiffer springs down the road and Illuminas won't handle them. I suggest lowering the car before fooling around with the camber - it will all change after lowering (You will need to lower the car to be competitive in FP). Same for the wheels - don't spend a lot on wheels until you get your coilovers on as they may not fit the way you wanted them to and your tire choice may change as you get more competitive with the car. Check around and see what "everybody" is running. Not that everybody is right, but a lot of them have been developing their cars for many years and with wisdom comes from experience.

Your buds sound like they are into, ah, never mind. Your site is good enough the way it is. I must have pretty servere ADS (or is it ADD?) cause I don't have the patience to sit through some jazzed up flash site. I like the benchracing stories. I saw your heatshield post before on the IZCC list I think. No chance of anything on my car getting overengineered like that heat shield! Grid routine and season prep are pretty good stories too.

B.S.M.E. - Working as an IT Manager - Lead Infrastructure Engineer at a client account for EDS. Worked as a staff engineer doing robotics R&D and project management for a few years, but I make better money as a computer jock (knock on wood).

I know where that is. I've been in Texas 25 yrs. but all my family still lives in Kingston so I go back up regularly. Kingston has changed but not too much. I think the biggest change was the 45 MPH speed limit on route 28 going out to West Hurley. Damn that's slow. I was up there for my 30th reunion last year. A bud and I went out to skydiveranch in New Paltz and jumped out of perfectly good airplanes. I was so scared I nearly fainted. They had to push me out of the plane.

z-Rex - Kingston NY, Huh? I graduated from KHS - Class of '72. Where do you live?

I read somewhere a brake job was $20 grand.

I'm heard the Enzo street price closer $1.5 Mil. I have some Enzo pictures I downloaded from roadfly.org before they were taken down. Aparrently an Enzo showed up for a BMW rally in Dallas and the pictures were taken by someone who had a good camera. They are in my picture album on this site http://66.140.241.85/index.html in the JohnB enzo picture album.

If you are talking about the oiless job here http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product.do?BV_UseBVCookie=Yes&vertical=TOOL&pid=00916561000 I got one a couple months ago. Not because it was my first choice, but I had a gift certificate I needed to spend and it was about the only thing they had a Sears that I needed for the amount of the certificate. It seems to work pretty well so far. So far I like it better than my old 5 HP 25 Gal Cambell Hausfield. So far, it doesn't run out of air except with a cheapie pneumatic cut off tool that I like to run at 100+ psi so I still prefer to use 4 1/2 electric angle grinders for cutting instead. But it pumps up again pretty quickly too. Being oiless, it should work well for painting. Specs say it says it is 175 PSI, but I fond that it cut off at about 170 PSI the first day and now it cuts off at about 160 PSI. There doesn't seem to be a way to adjust that. You will need to supply your own drier and pressure regulator, it has none. The only controls on it are the on-off, pressure gauge and a cut-off valve. I think you could find a higher CFM compressor for close to the same money (though it probably won't be 2 stage) at Harbor Freight or Home Depot.

I'll verify that if you take all the rubber out of the isolator and weld it up without anyway for the top of the strut to swivel, the strut piston will want to bend (and will bend) when the lower control arm tries move up and down. I thought that would happen, wanted to see for sure, and it did .....

So that is what that noise is. It has become very noticeable since I de-tarred my car. The worst part about it is people who come up and go "oh my god! What's that noise?" I just say "what noise? I don't hear any noise." My transmission has never shifted better by the way.

And running to boot! I'd be doing a slow shuffle, and toting a little stool to sit on from wheel to wheel. I don't take my car anywhere without the little stool!

I had to lift the motor up a teeny bit to get the pan over the steering rack and out on my '73. Could have removed the steering rack and not lifted the motor, but lifting the motor a little is way easier.

Those are some odd looking suspension parts for an NSX. I noticed there is a picture of my wheels there. They came off the number 94 240Z.

Yeah. I can't stand softer springs, can't go to higher spring rates without better shocks and I haven't gotten around to making adjustable end links for the sway bars yet. My excuse is the car was a worn out daily driver this time last year that couldn't move up from DFL even with Hoosiers and I'm working as fast as time and money will permit!

Yup. A feeble attempt to resolve spinning the inside rear tire on corner exit with an open diff. I have an LSD now, but I only have about 10 minutes of seat time with it so far so I'm still adjusting to it, but I haven't seen anything that would make me want to change it yet. I need some better valved front shocks. When that happens, I'm sure I'll change things around.

I run 1 on the back, 5 on the front. There you go. Different cars and drivers like different shock settings.

I am running a 1" front and a 7/8" in the rear with 300# Eibach ERS all the way around. Rear camber is (adjustable) at 0 degrees and front is -1.5 degrees (not adjustable yet). It should probably be closer to 0 degrees as well for the bias ply slicks. Body roll, so I'm told by observers, is nil. I'm still trying to get smooth behind the wheel so I had a much more experienced autox driver test the car out this summer for me and he told me he still thinks it's a little soft in the front but lateral grip is tremendous once the tires get warmed up. EDIT: Heat cycling: They say it adds lots of life to R compound tires. R compound tires have a short life and there is a proper break-procedure (heat them up, jack up the car while they cool, etc. I think tire rack and hoosier have the exact procedures on their web sites). You can get some R compound tires already heat cycled from Tire Rack to save you the trouble.

I am running 16X10 Real racing wheels (max allowed in FP) with a 5" backspace, 2.5" coilovers and a .5" spacer in the back and .6 inch spacer in the front with 3" wheel studs. I got a helluva deal on these pretty rare size wheels so I built the suspension around them. In order to for the wheels to clear my spring perches are above the rim. I have what for all practical purposed may be considered 0 clearance between the threaded coilover tube and the rim, enough to slip a small plastic tie wrap between the lip of the rim and the coilover tube. The lips on my wheels are slightly wider than the tires. The tires are Hoosier 22.0 X 10.0-16 road racing slicks. Tires rub on the tension/compression rod a full steering lock but thats not a problem. Who races with the wheels at full lock?

I really only see 3 brands of autocross tires down here (except for the novices). Kuhmo and Hoosier for race rubber and Azenis in street tire class. I've never tried the Kuhmo so I can't comment other than to say I see some great times from cars that have them. Hoosier and Azenis shod cars are running great times too.

That's how I do mine too. After that I "check" the toque with a 2' breaker bar and if I can still turn em, they aren't tight enough.