jeromio

The instructions specify where to weld the "ring" on the strut tube. I used that measurement (5 inches up from the bottom of the tube maybe? There's pics at http://240z.jeromio.com ) and then I adjusted the collar to the middle of the threaded tube. That got my height pretty much exactly where it was before, with the old springs (probably about 1-1½ inches lower than stock). I think my springs are 10inch. I know they are 150lb Eibach's (red, if that means anything). So, theoretically, I could have welded that support about an inch or two lower than I did. I mean, I have 4 whole inches that I can raise the car as it is - and I don't really plan on going off road with it. Although, I don't think it would be too driveable if I lowered it 4 more inches either.... [This message has been edited by jeromio (edited September 20, 2000).] [This message has been edited by jeromio (edited September 20, 2000).]

Definately sucks that you're having problems, but I think it's cruel to post something about a BBC in a Z without including any pictures! Are you running a live axle, or an R200? Sounds like maybe you need a lower (numerically) ratio diff.

Dunno why Mikelly came down on Darius for being defensive - hell I felt defensive after reading that Dsantel guy's post. He definately came off as "I know way more than you and boy did you spend alot of money screwing up your car". Not very friendly. At any rate, I'm very curious about the details of this Z32 LSD swap. What kind of shafts were used? Of course, noting the other intensely expensive mods on the car, it's probably a thing which lies well outside of my means. Nice to dream though....

I'm not sure if I understand the reasoning behind not sectioning the strut for larger wheels. There are some mean bumps where I live and I'd sure like to have more than 4 inches of travel. In particular there's an evil dip around a fast corner on the freeway journey home. Even with a good set of swaybars I figure the car is going to squat enough to soak up 2 or more inches. And that dip is gonna eat more than 2. If I do decide to section, I'd like to swap front tubes to the rear (since fronts are already 2 inches shorter than rears, right?) and then rears to front. If I do, then I'd need to shorten the rears by 4 inches to equal a 2 inch shortened front, correct? Does anyone know the specific model years of either MR2 or GTI cartridges? Thanks.

Sounds like a deal to me. I've got way more $$ money invested in my chassis and I had to repair much rust and have not roll cage. You might measure diagonally from corner to corner (an X) and make sure that both measurements are reasonably equivalent to make sure the frame is straight.

I'm not trying to be an ass, but have you ever worked for or dealt with a large company? I have, for a great many years. And it never ceases to surprise me how much stupidity a large company can amasse. I'm not saying that this engine is or isn't superior. Just that the fact that the big automakers ignored it is not very meaningful. BMW is the only carmaker that I can admire - and look at the idiocy that their deal with Rover exposed. These guys really need to just back up their claims though. Wouldn't be too hard. Mount the thing in some kind of car and drive it around. Post the weight of the car, the mileage, the MPG, the 1/4 mile times, etc. Take it to a JiffyLube and have them hook up their emissions tester to it and post the results. Put a coupla 100k on it. Until someone does that, there's no reason for anyone to take it seriously.

If you haven't already, I highly, highly recommend replacing the bushings at the same time. It took me an entire weekend for just the front 2. BUT, I also cleaned, blasted and painted every part. (I also converted to coil overs, but that didn't add much time at all). I haven't done the rear yet, but have heard that it's more difficult to tear down (which is only required if you are replacing bushings, which you should). You will also need to replace the lower ball joints.

That link Scottie posted, http://www.geocities.com/toohighpsi - highly recommended. Very interesting and often funny. These guys have done some incredible things with junkyard parts and turbos.

I have a dorky page that has some pictures at http://240z.jeromio.com. Hit the suspension rebuild link. I bought my Ground Controls from CyberAuto. Worked out to around $100 per corner which I think is an excellent price. I've only done the fronts so far and I used 150lb springs in front and these seem plenty stiff. If you want squat for traction, I would recommend less than that - maybe 130lb. The new perch is "cut" and has a screw so that it can be firmly tightened once you set it to the desired height. I'd imagine that swapping springs would be really easy - just jack up the car, undo the 4 bolts at the top of the strut tower, slide one spring off and another on. Haven't done this yet, But I think someone (Mike?) said that they drive to the track using one set and swap to the race set on site. And the actual springs are fairly cheap I think. In other words, if you find that the first rate you try doesn't work, changing will be no problem. For the rear, you're supposed to be able to use front 240 struts which are shorter, if you're worried about travel. Of course you'd have to plunk down dollars for another set of front cartridges along with the junk yard trip for the struts. I'm currently saving up money (and time) for the complete rear overhaul - including R200, bushings, coilovers, Ujoints.

Well, with all due respect to the guy who made the manifold in that picture - very impressive - a turbo manifold that I would make would not look anything like that. I would prefer to get the lengths _approximately_ equal, without having tubing snaking around every which way. I think it can be done much more simply. Of course, I don't have a turbo engine (though I crave one), and I therefore don't plan on doing any of this stuff. I would do it with J Bends as the starting raw material. You can get these (mandrel bent) for like $5 a piece from various header shops and suppliers.

What are "weld-els"? 90 degree pieces of tubing? I have made custom headers before - for my street truck. Some serious space constraint issues (BB Ford429, MustangII susp, '55 F100) that forced me to take that route. Twice - first pair rusted out. It was actually kind of fun. Like a 3d puzzle except you make the pieces instead of finding them. I started with J bends and used a tubing cutter. I say go for it. There's (relatively) lots of room on the side of the Z engine. (Too bad it's not a crossflow head) Take the stock manifold in to a machinist to have the flanges made based on the original from some good, thick steel. Buy the tubing, take lots of measurements. One good trick is to use the tubing cutter to cut the sections which ends up sort of compressing the resulting end. Then on the mating tube's end use a tubing expander so that there's a slight overlap of metal and things fit together nicely.

You are a very brave man. I've always considered myself pretty fearless, but I've never so much as contemplated tearing apart a transmission with any hope of putting it back together. Most I've done is replace a valve body in an automatic....

I have a friend who is a professional welder. He went to trade school and knows how to do fancy stuff like weld disperate metals and has even had a chance to do some work on high tech stainless alloys for medical devices. He also doesn't charge much (too little I always tell him). But you're probably no where near Durham, NC. Anyway, my point is that he took an hour or so to teach me how to weld properly. He's not very big-headed about it, but he works about 80 hours a week and consequently is an expert welder. At the end of my lesson he said that's pretty much all it takes if you're simply welding steel to steel. Adjust your feed speed and the gas so that your weld burns thru really well and lays down flat. With practice and a steady hand, your welds will look much prettier. Of course if you're welding thin sheet steel there's more technique and skill involved. But for mating fairly sturdy pieces together,such as tubing, the important thing is to just make sure that both pieces burn a good ways thru and the resulting bead lays down as flat as possible. Man, for $600 you could buy a really nice welding outfit (like say a 220v Lincoln weldpak with gas) and have the fun and experience of doing the job yourself. And then you'd have the equipment to do whatever else you want to. The great thing about welding: if you make a bad weld, all you gotta do is grind it off and try again. Besides, it's always difficult to find someone to do work on your car that cares as much about that work as you do. Just my opinion. Feel free to go to my website and critique my welds - they're often not pretty, but they're all plenty strong. ------------------ http://240Z.jeromio.com

The flexing could be a good point. Mine isn't mounted too tightly and I suppose I could substitute rubber or poly for the nylon spacers. I ordered the aluminum one, but I think Carparts substituted a copper unit. It's painted black, and it is light, but I don't think it's aluminum. Also the overflow fitting was broken. It took so long to arrive and I got it so cheap that I decided not to hassle with returning it. Avoid Carparts.com unless you have a huge coupon like I did. I have some pictures of the final installation - just haven't taken the time to put them up yet.

I have a sort of half-assed description of how I put a camaro radiator in my 240 at http://240z.jeromio.com. I didn't use the expensive JTR mounting kit, but my solution involved welding.

Okay. I was confused - I thought that the Outer Adapter and the companion flange were the same part. It did seem odd to have both the 4 bolt set and the 3 bolt set on the same part, but, there you go. The Annotated picture cleared that up. And welding an Outer Adapter type part with a 6 bolt (triple pair like the CV joint flange) hole pattern to the companion flange was already discussed, since that's what Scottie did..... Okay. I'm all done.

(wish this forum would use a cookie for my password - especially since it's one that it assigned me) I have 91 Plymouth Laser (it's a DSM like the Eclipse) seats in my 240. Got 'em for $75 for the pair. I did a slight bit of welding to bring the rear mount further back. I like them - huge improvement over the crappy stock seats. I am 6' with longish torso. My hair just touches the roof of the car. My choice was mainly dictated by what was available in the yards here in NC. You have to get them when the car first comes in, because none of the yards seem to care about keeping water out of the insides of the cars.

Their site is not very good. There's no specific info on a Z car rear end. Many of the links are broken. Also, there's really no information on the specs for the thing: how much HP/Torque can it handle, what are it's operational ranged, what gear ratios are available, etc. And the all important information on price is missing. It looks good, but more info is needed.

I have rebuilt and or re-installed many engines and have experienced pretty much every possible variation on the plug wire/distributor screwup. There's the reverse direction firing order. That one's fun, especially when the engine runs - just not well - much head scratching. 180 degrees out is popular with me. You can usually install the cap 180 degrees "wrong" to check this one. The most recent was on my L28. I put in the distributor from my L24 and somehow it was mounted 15 degrees out. It has stops that limit rotation, so I cranked it as far as it could go, but it just wasn't enough. Took awhile to see the mounting screws that allowed it to be mounted 15 either way. Of course I first checked absolutely every other possibility....

Well, now I'm just beating dead horses, but from the drawing for the adapter and the actual pictures of the parts bolted together, the CV flange end is actually a smaller diameter than the 280Z companion flange. Granted I'm sure it would be easier to just buy the part since it sounds like the group machine shop purchase thing is working out, but wouldn't that extra inch that the adapter consumes help with the tightness/CV travel issue?

Okay, yeah, well, it's jeromio, not jeronimo... And if you look at the drawings on pparaska's site, the difference in size does not appear to be a problem.

Okay, so without having actually seen any of these parts, it occurs to me to ask what may be a stupid question: Instead of making an adapter, why not take the flange to a machinist to weld in the old holes and have new holes made that match up with those on the CV shaft?

Okay. So I have a dented rear quarter on my 240. I should be getting a 280 parts car this weekend. I was planning on cutting out the right rear quarter from the 280 and grafting it in place of my dented one. But, the fenders are slightly different, right? So, I could try and blend the two together, keepeing the indent that is unique to the 240 fender. Or, I could replace panels on both sides. If I do the latter, then I have an evil thought: My current wheel/tire setup rubs the fenders. What about getting creative with the fenders, to make things wider in the rear? Anyone have any thoughts on this? It's crazy, I know.

By lower control arm adjustment, are you referring to the relocation of the mounting hole in the crossmember? I have read about moving this up 0.75-1 inch to reduce bump steer.

GMC has made a AWD 4.3GN powered S-10 truck and S-10 Blazer for several years now. I think the current one is called a Typhoon. It uses the AWD that I believe is common to the Astrovan. Not sure if it's beefed up beyond that common app., but seems like those kinds of parts would be available in salvage yards. Also, these are all automatics, so, it's hard to say whether the mechanicals would adapt to the T56. Certainly seems like it would involve huge amounts of time and money to pull off though.