Chris Duncan

If you are running a solid disc then why do you need 4 pistons? The Z32 came out in 1989 with a vented 11.75" rotor and a 2 piston aluminum caliper.

Put a hitch on your car and get a small utility trailer. I haul 20' tubing with a trailer and a Prius. I use the trailer about 6 times a year, not worth it to buy a truck. If you have a lot of rust you might want a blasting cabinet and a sand blaster, in which case you need a 2 stage compressor. I got one off Craigslist for $400, cost about $1000 new. They are noisy though, I try not to run mine after 10pm. If you are doing your own body work an air file and a DA save a lot of work and the only way to run them is with a 2 stage. I built a rotisserie out of 2 Harbor freight engine stands. They normally bolt together and a piece of 2"x2" tubing fits right in the bottom center leg. They are not tall enough to turn the car upside down, if you want to do that you have to extend the vertical tube. The problem is though when it's high enough to turn upside down then it's too high to work on when it's right side up. Consequently some rotisserie designs incorporate a jack to raise it up and down. I used 1/8" wall tubing and it works fine, anything more is just heavier to lug around and costs more.

The easy way to tell if the TOB collar is right is to remove the slave and check the release fork to see if it's loose. It should be loose until you push in the clutch release direction. Pull the dust boot back and make sure you are staying on the fork pivot when you check this. We are not talking looseness by coming off the pivot. It will be obvious looseness, like 1/2" to 1" movement before it starts pushing on the pressure plate. With the slave on if you back the adjustment off the fork should also be loose. A slave with an adjustable push rod is the old style. Make sure you have the master that goes with it. A good upgrade is to the new self adjusting master/slave setup. When properly adjusted the old style should have free play at the pedal and at the slave. With the new style there should be free play at the pedal and at the slave it will have just slave spring pressure. You should be able to push the slave back in the release direction when the car is sitting with clutch released. If you can't push it back the clutch is worn out.

Nice write up Savage42 What is your rec for the RB26? The Brailles' I'm looking at are the B14115, the B2015, and the B3121. It's a Sunday driver track car with no stereo. I'm thinking with a 2600cc with a relatively low C.R. that the 360CCA of the 14115 might work.

ATI Super Damper just arrived. The P/S pulley is removable and it weighs 5 lbs. 7 oz. without it. So 8 lbs. 3 oz. of weight off the front of the car and off the rotating weight.

The ECU should have a primitive check engine light. It flashes 2 digit codes, slow flash is the 10's digit, fast flash is the 1's. To read it just jump the check wires and turn the key off then on and count the blinks. Google the number and you will probably find what it corresponds to. Or just find the SM. You can ohm test most of the sensors and you should do this at the ECU that way you are checking the wiring at the same time. Pretty much any sensor can cause this symptom. And it should run decent in open loop. here's a screen grab of one of the SM's

Sleeves can cause problems. They make the sealing surface diameter larger and thus the seal is pushing harder because it's spring is more stretched out. Also if the material it's made of is soft then the seal will cut through it in relatively low miles. Another option if there's room is to drive the seal further in. Generally you don't want to leave the seal hanging out (not fully driven) because then there's less contact area where it has to hold onto the bore and crankcase pressure fluctuations can then push it out.

Not sure if it's possible even with the factory harness, but is there anywhere in the harness where a connector could be swapped? Usually they design them where it's not possible, when 2 connectors within reach of each other are the same type, but this does happen.

Know this is an old thread but posting updated info The GTR-Z is back on the front burner and I was trying to lighten the stock balancer by cutting off the front P/S pulley. I succeeded in cutting off the pulley but right at the end of the cut it started acting funny on the lathe and the center mount part came loose from the main part of the balancer. Apparently the way it's built the front pulley connects the main body to the mount bore so the pulley is now scrap metal. So shopping for a new balancer Stock R32 rb26 balancer. 13 lbs, 10 oz. Avg Ebay price $300 Unless it's a newly manufactured part the rubber ring that connects the hub to the outer ring is about 25 years old. This rubber will deteriorate and the balancer will separate. Have had this happen on a '75 280Z. Stock balancers can also be rebuilt with a new rubber ring. It's a specialty service and one guy that does it is located in Oregon. http://www.hbrepair.com/ He charges $115 plus shipping. Fluidamper 11 lbs. best Ebay price $365 R32 610901 R33/34 610911 the only difference is a small amount of offset to the pulleys This is a really nice steel balancer that uses liquid as the balancing medium thus it never needs rebuilding and it self adjusts to the engine build/tune. The outer P/S pulley is removable. ATI Super Damper 7 lbs. best Ebay price $400 An aluminum and steel damper. Uses a set of o-rings to dampen. Is rebuildable and can be tuned with different o-rings. Believe the outer P/S pulley is removable but have not confirmed. there's other balancers available (USA) but the prices are higher

General racing tricks. Overfill by 1 quart. Run a larger brighter oil pressure light. (Or just make sure the light you have is easily visible) Start moderate and work your way up to speed gradually lap by lap keeping an eye on the oil light.

Another thing that happens when you install a seal backwards. If you look close at a factory seal there are very small angled wipers (raised ribs) where it rubs on the sealing surface. Angled sort of like the blades of a fan. Paying attention to the rotation direction these wipers should be wiping oil back into the trans. If the seal is backwards they will wipe oil towards the out direction. Not all seals have these wiper ribs, especially aftermarket. Also if you have the wrong seal for the application the seal may appear to fit but the wipers can be pointed in the wrong direction. On the clearance of the rear bushing. It might be tighter once it's installed.

Yes, they are pretty stiff. We raced The Ridge, 19th, 20th July. Got pretty lucky on the set up it handles awesome in the dry and the wet. We've got 2 drivers with decades of experience and they were impressed it was this good on the first race. The spring rates are 150# in the front and #190 in the rear. This may sound soft in the front but it made it work in the wet. The Ridge is a really smooth track, we'll know more after we race at Pacific which really tests the suspension.

Man that thing looks way too nice for Chumpcar. Yeah I tried finding the 15/16 but couldn't find one that's affordable. I'm running the Wilwood 1" master and the stock proportioning valve. Hawk Blues on the front and Napa budget pads on the rear for balance. These brakes are working really good. We ran The Ridge 9 hrs Sat and 5 hrs Sunday and the brakes are barely worn.

Sorry if I asked a question already answered. I was in a hurry to make the shipping deadline for that day. I ended up with the Wilwood 1", seems to work pretty good.

No, you have to cut off the stock mount tabs and weld new ones on. This is with a 2005 specV Sentra rotor. What rotor are you running on the rear with your Z32 rear caliper?

75 280 4 pot Mazda RX7 in front. 90 300zx 2 pot in rear looking for the 15/16 master and can't find any affordable. Does anyone have a good source? The 1" from Wilwood is affordable what would be better, the 7/8 stock or the 1"?

'75 280Z with '83 280ZX R200 diff. I took the spring off and put the suspension through it's full range. The axle at the shortest point still has about a 1/4" of travel before bottoming. I did rebuild this axle complete including the slide part of it with new grease and a boot. This suspension also has full urethane bushings and a strut housing that's shortened 2" with the Rabbit/Scirocco Bilstein Sport struts with internal bump stops. And the strut tower tops are slotted for more negative camber and they were set full negative (1/4" movement at the slot). This should make the axle even shorter. Somewhere in mid travel is where the axle is the shortest. at full droop and going toward full bump it is getting longer. Under heavy road load it may be possible that this setup would bottom the axles, it would definitely be possible with rubber bushings. This test did find another problem. The stock brake flex hose does not work with the 2" shorter strut. Not only does it hit the lower arm at full bump but it's also too short at full bump. Was able to fix this by re-locating the ends of the flex hose.

Bolted an R200 out of a '83 280ZX into a '75 280Z It looks like the R200 is offset where the stub axle faces are located, but the '75 axles are the same length so the left one is more compressed to the point where there's only about a 1/4" travel left. Is this diff supposed to be a direct bolt in or is there an easy fix?

The ZX's are right hand on both sides, at least the '83's I have are. Thanks anyway.

Need the left hand lock nut that goes on the steering rack inner tie rod end thanks

Why not just swap an S30 cross member? It's a pretty light weight and complex piece. It would be difficult to match it's strength to weight ratio. The hardest part is changing the tension rods to compression rods. That and the S30 struts are about 2" shorter. When I did my L24 510 swap I used the S30 X-member and made compression rod mounts and lowered the strut top mounts. But depending if you are lowering anyway the 2" higher mounts might work. If doing it from scratch the choice of material size would be the question. Probably an unusual tubing size, like 1"x3"x .095" or even .078". Or 1"x4" or 2"x4"x .078". Actually 2"x3" would be closest to the S30. The S30 X-member is .075" but it's made of two pieces that are flanged together so the flanges are .150" and it has doubler plates on the motor mounts, chassis mounts, and inner lower arm mounts. If you know Solidworks or a 3D modeling program it would be helpful, you could work out all the geometry and clearances much quicker that way. I would keep the S30 rack, it's a pretty nice piece, light weight, very durable and a quick ratio. The 240 had an aluminum gear housing and lower pinion shaft bushing, the 280 went to a cast iron housing with a roller bearing on the lower pinion. I prefer the earlier one since it's lighter and I've never seen any problem with the bushing.

The Bilsteins mean $100, urethane bushings $25, headers $50, fabbed camber adjusters $10, materials for air damn, rear spoiler $20, Lexan $20. That puts it near $500. Springs are $20 ea, so $80.

So we've got two options for springs from other cars. Honda Prelude Chevy Chevette any idea what years/gen those are?

The springs that the car came with are off something else (not a Z) and they are cut. They didn't do a very good job with the angle of the ends and they don't match the perches, so the springs sit a little bit crooked. The whole conundrum is I have to weld on the perches, but to get the ride height spot on is going to be tough. I need some clamps to clamp below the perches so I can move them to determine where they should be. Of course the OD of the strut tubes is 2-1/8" so the clamp is not going to be anything off the shelf.