jeromio

I too covet that car. They have a forum dedicated to it on ls1tech.com. Apparently there are major wheel hop issues with the suspension - but I'm sure some aftermarket company will have a fix. As to M5 - yeah, you could say it's competitive with the current M5 (3rd gen), but not with the upcoming V10 model. Then again, for the price of one gen4 M5 you could get 2 CTS-Vs.

That is really quite interesting. Not sure why it costs so much since it seems very simple. It would put some very strange loads on the hubs, suspension and engine/trans mounts. It'd be a good test to make sure everything is secure and tied down.

What year FBody exhaust manifolds did you try? I have 1999 units on mine and they fit fine. I had to hammer on the heat shield on the dirver's side - and of course I removed the stock flanges.

That exhaust system looks amazing. I think putting the intake on the driver's side is definitely the way to go. I chose passenger side because I was concerned about upper radiator hose interference - which is dumb. I have many more problems with the overflow line and tank. Everytime I see another one of these clean, aesthetic, better than factory looking LS1 installs I have to bite my lip and just try to remind myself that my car runs, I can drive it, my car runs, looks don't matter, my car runs I don't think it's working. Then again, $750 vs. $75...

To answer Phantom's question, yes, there is an air vent system in the heads of the LS1. There is a line that connects both head vents and then runs thru the throttle body and then into the radiator on the FBody. I have mine going into the upper radiator hose, but I have bypassed the throttle body. It is very important to connect this vent line. I had initially tried capping the vent - sort of a half-assed "I'll plumb that later" move. Well, the heads were full of air and the thing overheated all the time. I actually don't think that the upper rad hose is an effective vent dump either. I think it's a bit too low. The ideal soln. would be to plumb it into the top of the radiator tank. This would be very easy to do with a Datsun radiator, a little harder with the side tank style - especially my camaro rad which has nylon side tanks. My "procedure" for getting the air out of the heads involved running the motor with the rad cap off and the head vent line dumping into the radiator. Can't say it's the best way to do it, but it worked for me.

75-78 280Z housing is what you want. You might try Zbarn. If it's a local, non-Z specialty yard, they may have a hard time removing the strut housing from the arm. The spindle pin is very difficult to remove. If they use a hammer on it, then it will ruin the pin. I know of some local yards around here that like to use the blow torch to remove parts. If so, I recommend requesting the arm and strut assembly as a whole.

You can isolate the ign. switch by shorting the poles on the starter solenoid (with the ign. set to On of course). But my guess is that it's the solenoid or the starter. The fact that the starter is "new" is immaterial. Especially if it's a reman from a chain store. I've gotten so many defective parts from these places that I will only ever buy from those chain stores if the repair is critically time sensitive and the "regular" parts counter is closed.

Dave, what will your price be on the fiberglass dash?

The V12 in the Aston Martins is essentially 2 Duratec V6s. Allows them to leverage all the part numbers for valves, pistons, etc and also leverage the R&D on combustion chamber design, etc.

Driving along to class yesterday. They're tearing up the roads on campus, so it's pretty bumpy. Then, just as I'm almost to my building, BLAM! SMASH! CLUNK! I could hear this thing bouncing off the floor, etc. Looked in my rearview and saw this huge chunk of something bouncing behind me. Few seconds later there's dust in the back hatch area. And a smell. Wait, no, that's not dust, that's smoke. WTF? Hey, oil pressure is zero! What's going on? Now there's lots of smoke. I roll into the parking deck, get out - black trail behind me. I'm gonna have to mount this thing: My car is a bit low. And the pan is a sconch below the engine xmember. But still, I don't expect to encounter boulders on the road. There's oil coating everything under the car now. Now I have to find a pan, suck away a Saturday with R&R. I'm assuming the motor is okay. It ran for maybe 30seconds with basically no oil. I had $6/qt synthetic in there - hopefully there was enough of it still coating the various surfaces during that time.

John or Richard, do either of you have any pics of your front hook? Thanks.

Not sure if this is the best place to put this question, but I had to have my car towed this evening. First time I've driven it in almost a month and a big-ass, sharp rock hit my oilpan and either cracked it or punctured it. Lost all oil. Very sucky. Anyway, the stock tow hooks are behind the airdam. The tow-guy used them anyway - I tried to convince him to use the bumper - no go. I have a flexible dam, so it bends, and I guess it's basically okay. However, would like a better solution. I've noted on many "racecars", there is a prominant, easily accessible tow hook or ring that is presumably used to pull the car out of the weeds after a spin or whatever. I do plan to put the car on a track at some point. And since I am a total novice, I will likely need to have my car extracted many times. There are plenty of good attachment points on the back of the car - but I have difficulties finding a good location on the front. I don't really care if it looks retarded - my car looks like crap anyway. I'm aiming for functionality. I doubt the area on the inner (hood) side of the headlight bucket is a good spot - unless it was re-enforced. I could try and make something rather long and large that attaches to the front bumper mount. Anyone have any better ideas? Any pics? I gotta thing Mr. Coffey has a ring or a big hook on the front of his car, but I can't find a pic. I know there must be 100s of 240Z racecars - I just can't seem to find any pictures....

How are you able to tell that the shaft is moving?

This is all just internet vandalism. There are scripts that just pull email addresses out of thin air - either scanning web pages for something@dot.com or simply creating email addresses like foo@yahoo.com - using DNS data. If you look at the full header of these emails you can see where it actually originated, and it won't match up. So for instance, if you get an email that is supposedly from somebody@jeromio.com, and you open up the header, you will see that it did not originate from my IP address - the email was spoofed and routed thru an open relay. More than likely the originating IP maps to a PC that got wormed and is now acting as a drone spitting out millions of spam emails. My server gets hit with about 500 spam emails per day. It's annoying. More so since any that are spoofing one of my domains then generate failure messages that get mapped to my server (because most email servers don't bother to check for spoofs), which is just more spam.

So, how does that work, I thought you had to show at least 2 years experience working under another ASE guy in order to qualify?

To continue with that hijack, what ever happened to the "Mark" from North Carolina? Some kind of registration collision?

I got a shorty stainless 3in muffler from MAC Performence. It's very nice and it was very inexpensive. For the LS1, it's not enough for sound. My car is really loud and I will be adding a bullet to the middle (aft of the Y). But it would probably work perfectly by itself with a turbo.

On that toe adjuster project, I got as far as jacking up my car. Some time this summer.... Are you completely re-creating the suspension uprights? I was planning on just joining mine together with some 12 or 14ga. For the undercoating removal - I tried the torch thing and it does work, but it is very scary. I didn't last too long. The key is just to try and melt it - I found burning it to be a bit too terrifying. If it's hot, it's easy to scrape off. Then you go back with the wire wheel or flap sanding wheel. I saw a post where someone used dry ice (which you can get at the grocery store these days). I'd like to try that myself. Wouldn't work for all areas though. For paint, I love that hammerite stuff from HomeDepot. The one odd thing is that it doesn't seem to work well over primer. For your stripped nut, I second the helicoil idea. I think it would just be the easiest. For fasteners, I try to grab as many as I can off of whatever junk car I'm pulling parts from at the pick and pull.

You know, after looking at the pics, and pondering for a few moments, I can think of at least one reason not to consolidate mustache and uprights into one piece. Terry, on your setup, is this unit bolted directly to the frame of the car, or are there bushings? If the latter, then of course the twisting, vibration, etc. from the diff will be transferred to the control arms (not a good thing IMO). If the former, well, it'd pretty much have to be a hard-core racer to justify that harshness. And so to Dave (arizonazcar) I must say, nevermind.....

Terry's page is rather light on images, but here's the description: http://www.zhome.com/rnt/FordPower/AlDiffUpright.html I know I've seen pictures of the piece here on this site - especially in the post about the adjustable rear toe setup.

I think Drax makes a good point. But more fundamentally, why not create something like what Terry created: A unit that replaces the mustache bar and the suspension uprights.

ls1tech.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=28 YOu will very likely end up needing a Holden oil pan. This can be purchased from Sean at SMC: valvegod at aol dot com.

I had this same problem. Either your driveshaft is not balanced properly or your driveline angles are incorrect.

You really should consider buying a hoist - the folding kind. Chances are very good that you will be pulling your LS1 out at least once. I mean, I guess you have the kit, but still - I'll bet I pulled my LS1 in and out at least 4 times for various reasons. I got my hoist for $160. Doesn't take too many rentals to pay for that. I recommend getting a tilter too. I made one, but they can be purchased for <$50. Makes things much, much, much easier.

My 240 unit looks just like that bottom one. I think the main differences are to be seen with the unit flipped over. The 280 unit is a bit taller and more straight across, vs. the 240 being shallower and more curvy on the topside.