gramercyjam

I'm using some custom jobs like these that Tom made. http://sth2.com/Z-car/front-closeup.jpg

You need a relay that is activated by the thermostat. The relay then completes the circuit between the battery and the fan. Don't forget to put a fuse between the battery and the relay. Painless makes a nice little kit for this that can save you a lot of time.

I have an R180 VLSD in my 240Z and it might as well be an open diff. So where do I get this heavier oil for it and how do I put it in? --John B '73 240Z

Dedicated AutoX 240Z. Relatively low cost way to spank anything that comes along that happens to have doors 8 second american iron on the dragstrip appeals to the primal urges in me but that will have to wait until I don't have the strength to turn the wheel on my 240Z any more. Road racing would be cool too, maybe when the kids grow up and move out .... --John

http://www.hybridz.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7519&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=mr2 --John '73 FP 240Z

You should probably find out exactly what was done to it in the "rebuild". I can tell you I recently paid about $325 to have the following done to an E31. I did plenty of checking around first and this price is considered cheap around here for head work. Pressure test head Straighten the head - shave top and bottom surfaces to my spec: all new intake and exhaust valve guide inserts all new oversize valve seats fit all new oversize valves 5 angle valve job Thats it. I bought all the parts with me so the machine shop didn't need to provide any parts and I did all the disassembly and reassembly. The most expensive part is putting in new oversize seats. Machine shops don't like to do it because there is too much room for error and screwups. Replacing with the same size seats would probably have been $100 cheaper. Of course the turbo/EFI crowd is not the market for this head. I think it would be worth considerable more than $100 if it really has had everything it needed done to it. --John '73 FP 240Z

They are the first thing that goes on after the gland nut. Rubber bumpstops are part of a stock setup. Those don't look any longer, and may be even shorter than stock. You can always section later if you find that need more shock travel. AFter you put it back together, do the nylon tie wrap test to find out for sure. --John '73 FP 240Z

Here is a tip you may or may not want to think about if you section your struts. Of course these tips are obvious, but critical to the success of your coil-over and sectioning project. I have done a few and seen a few that were done. A couple problems that you can run into that aren't easily fixable if you make a mistake are: When welding the housing, you want it to be as true as possible. If it isn't the shock won't go in smoothly. I put an old shock in the housing and then clamped the housing in a couple of heavy pieces of angle iron to achieve this. The second thing is if you burn through when you are welding the housing and get little bump on the inside, the shock will be very hard to get in and even harder to get out unless you smooth the inside of the housing. If you cut the housing down low so you can leave a full bead as suggested by the ground control instructions, removing and smoothing the bump can be very difficult. --John '73 FP 240Z

Snagged one! --John '73 FP 240Z

FYI, here is a site that has a BBS for hauling stuff around the country. http://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cgi-bin/haulquery.pl --John

Thanks Doug. Your reply is perfectly clear about what needs to be done. Looks like I'll be buying a few fittings and a length of brake line as well as the proportioning valve before I tear into it. --John '73 FP 240Z

Doug, This is exactly what I have been looking to do next on my car 'cause the rears lock up at the slightest touch now that there is no weight in the rear of my car too. When you plumbed in your pro valve, what did you do with all the connections to your pro valve on the firewall? Did you remove that old stock unit and replumb everything or just replumb the line to the rear brakes? --John

I would guess you still have air in the master cylinder. I would disconnect the hydraulic line and make up one that loops back into the reservoir and pump the hell out of it for a while until you no longer get air bubbles. This method works good for easily bleeding stubborn master cylinders too. --John '73 FP 240Z

Spline count is 24. If you are looking at clutch disks it should take a 1" X 24 spline. From what I recall when putting a nissan roller pilot bearing in, the pilot bearing in the crank is about .5" long and the input shaft doesn't go in much further than that. --John '73 FP 240Z

I would say in an autox, the biggest factor isn't the car, but the driver. A good car doesn't make up for lack of driving skills. A viper showed up last year with mods like aftermarket twin turbos and indy car style wheels and slicks. That car sure did draw a crowd. and it looked like it was going to hand everybody their ass, no problem. But, as it turned out, My POS stock motor 240Z on street rocks was only .013 sec slower than it on a 70 second course. On the other hand, a few years back, a different viper/driver showed up to the event late just as we were finishing up but we let him take a fun run anyway. He hit the course without so much as a look at a course map and took TTOD ... against some other very fast cars and drivers too. --John #73 FP 240Z

I used to drill them out and sometimes you get lucky and things go OK. Sometimes the drill gets a little off center or cocked and things go from bad to worse. Now I take a small drill and put a hole down the center of the broken off stud or bolt. Then I go in with a small dremel bit and grind it out from the inside out. Takes longer than just trying to drill it out but I think it is a little safer as it is more tolerable to having the drilled hole off center. --john b.

check this out. http://www.datsport.com/Chapter_Six.html --John B.

There are a couple of reasons why people run 16X10 on their cars in FP. First, they are the biggest rims allowed in the class for Z cars. Go with the max width allowed for more grip and the max diameter allowed for bigger brakes. Can you be quicker on your 15X7 vs my 16X10"? Sure, I'm not known as a very technical driver. And depending on the course layout, temperature and driving ability, car setup, etc, the skinny tire could be the faster one. But when you go up against experienced nationally ranked cars and drivers, I don't think that would happen very often, or else these guys wouldn't be running 16X10's. So what am I, Mr Cheap, doing throwing in with a bunch of racers whose motto is ""how fast can you afford to go?". I don't know. Maybe the same reason I went and got an engineering degree. Because it's hard and there is a high probability that I will fail. It makes things interesting! --John

Oh yea. I'm mister cheap. I've been looking for some affordable alloy 16X10 wheels with a 5" backspace for more than a year now. They don't need to be the coolest looking wheels around, but they can't be butt ugly either. And the longer I wait, the more expensive they get too. However it looks like I'm done looking now because a nice set came up on the used market and I was able to snag them. Now I hope they get here before the price of race rubber starts going up! --John B. Uncompetitive BSP 240Z Soon to be uncompetitive in FP!

4 lug 300Z's are close. I had some for a while on my car. They will rub the springs on a stock suspension without some pretty thick spacers - 1/4 inch or so. --John B.

What do you-all think of Circle wheels? Thinking of getting the 16X9.5 ones for autocross (http://www.circlekarting.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=CR&Product_Code=82695&Category_Code=16) and putting on 245/45-16 A3S03's. They list at $214.50 each. The 16X10 wheels jump the price up to $289.80 each. Yea, I'm cheap. --John B.

FYI: I saw a web page a while back chronologing a 510 racers experiences. It seems he was suffering loss of oil pressure and overheating too but as it turned out, the timing chain was wearing off bits of guide/tensioner and those bits were ending up in the oil filter and elsewhere too I suppose and clogging things up. --John B

These don't look like any triples I have seen before. I'd venture to guess that they _could_ be throttle bodies for FI setup. --john

Get your struts first. You won't know how much to section out without them. Section the housing to fit the strut. The raising or lowering the coilover perch adjusts the ride height. --John B.