TheNick

http://www.car-part.com Thats where I found mine (3.9 out of an 87). Drove 20 min to a bad part of town and they had it at the desk ready for me to go when I showed up.

Check the throwout bearing - mechanical or hydraulic? Sounds like the clutch isn't engaging. Is it full of fluid?

The $500 special from my old region. Built out of parts laying around in the backyard. 4cyl Mitsu truck motor and a two speed automatic converted to a slapstick with full manual control. Guy is a real nut - incredibly smart - has a few circle track cars that he has built as well. Owns two generator powered tornado/nuclear bomb sirens...why? Just because - they were cheap and he has the room for them

I just realized I had the exact numbers for the S2000 frame rail width sitting right next to me from my sway bar build. ~29.5" from inside to inside. Rails are about 2.5" wide total. Thanks to the Chassis Dimension thread - the Z frame rails are ~27.5" Gee looks like all you would need to do is cut 2" out of the center of the s2000 subframe and upper control arms and you'd be in business

Nope

And let me clarify yet again the no common sense thing - this comment is coming from a guy who bought a $600 Civic and promptly dropped $2k into it for brand new bushings and bearings on all 4 corners, race valved Koni's, multiple sets of 500lb+ springs etc. Sometimes I forget that not everyone on every site knows who I am or can sense tone through the internet. Such is why I hate email at work sooooo much. Just gimme a damn phone...

Jon - I'm not trying to start a fight with you. Clearly I'm here because I own a Z. I don't race it, there aren't many people here that race at all. Those that do don't post much. Tom Holt is here sometimes and John has worked on numerous race cars. I have other cars for racing that fit the letter of sanctioning body rules much better. Purpose of really heavy modifications does not mean racing. The point of my post was - if your end goal is to build a competitive, championship winning caliber car and saw that you need to put 3x's the value of the car into the suspension alone to get it to that point - common sense would dictate that you run away as fast as possible and find a different car to start with. If someone is interested - I can take a look at the frame rail width of my S2000 - track width is an extra 2" on each side and would necessitate high offset wheels to fit under the fenders of a Z. The front subframe does have the mounts for the lower control arms - upper arms would need to be mounted to the frame rail of the Z but it doesn't look like it would be too bad of an install. If you were gutsy enough - you could possibly find a way to run the Electric power steering of the Honda too.

CSR /= production car with 0 downforce in comparison. Keep that in mind Jon

From what I saw - John was saying both ideas were bad - mine was just a random pull of an SLA suspension from the Speedway motors catalog I had in front of me. I didn't pay much attention to its construction. You can do a lot with any strut suspension - I'm not disputing that - but taking the time to put a crappier suspension on a car that already has a crappy suspension doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Hell if anyone here was actually racing - and had the slightest touch of common sense (read - not dumping 3x's the value of the car into the suspension) - they wouldn't start with a Z or a Mustang unless it was an SN197...

More rebound at slow piston speeds allow for faster response to transients - turn in, slaloms, corner exit etc. Cary is the 1st person I've ever heard say that linear valving may be advantageous and lead to more grip. The only time I've ever heard of linear valving being used is circle track racing where there are very few transient maneuvers. Linear valving is pretty horrible for street driving because of the incredibly high forces at fast piston speeds - a lot of the bumps get transmitted directly to the chassis instead of using the spring energy to dissipate it. This is why every single off the shelf Koni has some level of digressive valving - not sure about Bilsteins but I think most of the are as well.

Listen to John - its horrible. Anything where you have to run 1100+lb springs and still over 3deg of camber is going to have large compromises built into it. IT REALLY is that bad! One of the worst Macstruts ever designed - seconded only to maybe the B13 Sentra's. You can make a Macstrut work really well - see any BMW or Porsche. But starting with a Nissan or Ford design is truly an uphill battle. In this case - the stock suspension for the Z is still leaps and bounds ahead of a Mustang. BTW - I've run over 1.1g's (sustained) on a 195mm wide street tire in a Civic on an autox course. Using that as a gauge to compare handling is not a really good way to do it - its more or less a by-product of magazines not being able to quantify subjective testing and feel of a car.

uh yeah that suspension absolutely blows monkey balls. You DO NOT want to put a MacStrut Mustang suspension under your Datsun. The best solution would be what JohnC posted - aftermarket Mustang K-frame with Griggs SLA conversion. Expensive yes, worth it? Maybe. Better option I think is to do something like what someone else suggested - find a car that already has a good front suspension (corvette) and try to swap that over. In reality it wouldn't be that hard - you would almost certainly have to narrow the crossmember to make it fit under the Z fenders. Hell a Z32 front suspension wouldn't be a bad place to start...although I don't know if it all attaches to the crossmember...

I wouldn't bother with a crappy Mac strut front subframe - if I were to do it - I'd be looking at a Hot Rod complete front end such as http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Mustang-II-Stock-Control-Arm-Independent-Front-Suspension,2088.html

And going to be very hard to setup a damper for... You'd need an "off road" position sensitive damping shock with bypass valves to really get it right

I just copied over one of the pics to MS Paint and zoomed in - Only counted 27 splines

http://tinyurl.com/cxahjo Looks to me like its a clutch type - I've already sent a message to JHOT to verify 29spline count. Any other thoughts?

The Sentra most definitely does not use gland nuts.

The Z cars are pretty much the only car I've ever seen that uses gland nuts for strut inserts. Every other MacStrut car uses a bolt that goes through the bottom of the strut housing and up into the insert. The only Koni insert that does not come with a threaded boss on the bottom for a bolt is the 8610/8611 series. I have Koni 4th Gen Maxima front inserts that I'm thinking about using in the rear of my Z - they are a good 3" taller than the 8611's but I already have them so it wouldn't cost me anything to put them in.

http://www.speedwaymotors.com mcmaster.com

Makes sense - I got my 4% assuming the the 245 was 25.7" tall and the 285 was 24.7" (just worked the numbers without mfg data)

John I assume your 5mph difference accounts for the different tire diameters too? The 285 would reduce your top speed in each gear by about 4%

Agreed - but you are talking slicks - not DOT tires. If I was running a Z in BSP or SM2 I'd be seriously looking at this tire. Ok probably not - I'd be on a 275 15" front and a 315 or 305 17/18" rear in BSP and a 275 rear in SM2.

Its right on par with a 285/30/18 and when it comes to autox thats a short tire.

Yup they added a section to the middle of the 245/35/18 mold. Should be interesting for the RX8's in BS and a couple Porsche's in SS. Thats a pretty short tire - I bet it would work nicely in the front of a Z

4.5" Dewalt handheld grinder with grinding wheel that it comes with. Probably could have used a flap disc but it would have taken longer. I installed mine with an open R200 but won't ever run it it that way - I'll pull it again to put the LSD in and take a little more off the shafts when I do. I don't think I took enough off. Grinding more than you think you need in this case seems to be a good idea.