burninator

My research indicates the V710s last the longest of the DOT legal competition tires, but the Hankook z214 lasts longer than Hoosiers and is considerable cheaper and nearly as fast (some say faster). If you're spinning your tires a lot that's probly making them wear faster, you may be able to get more life out of a wider size if it slips less, and to a certain extent even if it doesn't. And you can always replace the rears only if they wear a lot faster. I still do like to be able to rotate them though. When you're not in a power slide from all that boost how does the car handle, neutral, under-steer, over-steer? Wider tires in the back will affect the balance.

Noted. Thanks!

That all sounds like great advice. Toe is now the first thing on my list to check as soon as I get a chance. Too little rebound I didn't expect to hear... I am running Koni yellows that I bought from you John, and I run them at the minimum rebound setting with 350lb springs. I feel like it helps the rear end set exiting corners and my car oversteers like crazy, at least the way I drive it. I've found that I have a tendency to make any car oversteer even if the owner swears it pushes.

I'll check the toe, I did not check it after adjusting the camber. The shocks are pretty new. I guess I've never noticed a vibration that would make me think a wheel was badly out of balance, but I never go that fast in it. With autocross only, so I maybe only hit a bit above 60 for short periods. Could happen though, when I get new tires I'll have them balanced.

I shook the wheels pretty hard and there is no obvious play. No noticeable play in the steering either. All bushings are new as of 2 years ago and everything feels fairly tight. It has about 2.75 degrees camber, I'll have to check the toe. It's doing it on both sides but is slightly worse on the drivers side. Here are some pics:

On my autocross only 240 I'm running Nitto NT01s. The outside edge wore in a cyclic pattern with a low spot every 3.25 inches or so the whole way around. At first I thought the odd wear was just as the first bit of tread disappearing (they basically turn into a slick as they wear about half way). Now it's obvious that it was more than that and I need new tires, but before I get the new tires I want to figure out what may have caused the odd wear pattern. Any ideas?

I don't think you can be sure without taking off the front plat and looking for the shiny links on the timing chain. I did something similar and took one engine apart for a head gasket change without intending to replace the head so we just marked the head where we took it off and found the head to be too far gone to be useful. I got a new head but didn't know how the old one came out so we just set the block and head to TDC. Without realizing it we put it back together with the head and block 180 degrees out of synch and the only way it will run now is with the spark plugs all swapped 180 degrees on the distributor. I'll fix it when I get time, but was on a timeline trying to make a race.

Did you adjust the valves cold? The cold adjustment is 0.008" intake and 0.010" exhaust. I don't know if that difference would make the valves contact the pistons. I wouldn't guess so, but I don't know for sure and I don't know what else it could affect.

Okay, the water jacket is not cracked, it's just the valves that are leaking.

I see what you mean. Point taken. I'm fairly confident that this is not the case, but I'll double check with him. I was figuring the head gasket may have had a small leak or something.

I'm positive that he was talking about the valves leaking. I don't know if his method is common practice, but we had a lengthy discussion about it and I'm sure that is the case. Also, his diagnosis of leaking valves and recommendation of a valve job doesn't make sense for a cracked water jacket.

I'm running carbs, and the compression ratio is almost the same with either. 8.38:1 with the E88 head vs 8.4:1 with the N47. Though if I have the head surfaced to take out 14 thousandths of warp it would be a bit higher.

A little background... So, last fall while autocrossing I broke my radiator, dumped my coolant, and overheated my car. This all happened within 15 seconds, so it wasn't running long that way, but it did have to sit with no coolant in it after having been brought up to running temp. After repairing the radiator, refilling the coolant, and running it for a minute or 2 I found oil in the water. Determined it was a blown head gasket and let it sit until now. Now, I pulled my head and found that it is warped. Took it to the machine shop for inspection and it is about 14 thousandths warped. He also pressure checked the valves with water and determined that the valves are leaking a bit. He indicated I could use it like that but it might be down a bit on power. The exhaust was white/gray before this incident happened and I don't know what the compression ratio was, it ran and that's about all I cared about at the time. I say this because maybe it was leaking and/or warped a bit the whole time, although it never had oil in the water until the incident. Its an L28 block with an N47 head. I have an older head that's still on my L24 that's in pretty unknown condition, but ran before the swap. So, what should I do? I can't afford to do a valve job on it (like $250), but having it surfaced flat would be cheap ($65). I though about trying to lap the valves myself but I don't know if that would help the seal much. Or I could have the old head from the L24 checked out and use it if it's good. If the old head needs any work would it be worth it?

Every time I see it I hate it a little less, maybe it just takes some getting used to. Really, there are some angles where it looks really good and some angles where it looks really bad. I haven't decided if I like it or not.

Do you have the run files? Or did the operator just give you the image? I bet the graph is showed vs speed because if it's set to vs rpm there are gaps in the curve. You should have them try to turn on advanced rpm filtering in the environment options. If you have the actual run files you can try this yourself. That usually fixes the problem. If the rpm signal from the car isn't good it can drop out intermittently. Because of the way torque is calculated if it sees the rpm drop but the force is the same the torque will spike. It probly isn't the dyno's fault. There may be weird grounding or something going on with your ignition system. I'm sure your car runs fine, but I bet the dyno doesn't do that same thing with most other people's car. Those rpm pickups can be temperamental that way.

The F-150 with the EcoBoost engine is not out yet. Should be soon though.

So was the engine revving up like it was out of gear and the car was just coasting? That would likely be a clutch/transmission problem. If the car felt like it was still in gear and just wouldn't accelerate when you gave it gas, then that's different all together.

205/??? R14... The width and rim size of the tire mean nothing about the diameter of the tire without knowing the aspect ratio. For what it's worth, tire rack lists the stock tire size as 195/70R14 which has an overall diameter of about 24.8" depending on the brand and model of tire. I'll walk you through the calc just this once: the second number is the aspect ratio meaning that the sidewall is that percentage of the width. So, a 195mm width tire with a 70 aspect ratio has a 195 * 0.70 = 136.5mm high sidewall, to convert to inches we divide that by 25.4 and get 5.37". Since that is only 1 sidewall the total tire height is 2 * sidewall height + rim diameter, 2 * 5.37 + 14 = 24.8" (rounded). It's very common, almost expected, for the speedometer of cars to be off from the factory. I believe legally they can be up to 10% high versus actual speed (as read by a gps). Yes, your tires are different from factory size and that will make a difference in how the speedo reads, but don't assume it was dead on from the factory. I'm not really sure what, if anything, your still trying to get from this thread. I'm trying to be helpful, but you need to post informed questions. Most of what I have told you is easily found by searching or just looking at some web sites that sell tires. Bottom line is: If you just want tires that will work, go down to the store and have the sales man put whatever tires he recommends in your budget on your car. If you are trying to be informed about tires before you walk into the store, do some research. If you want to pick your own tires out, do some research. Most importantly, if you have any other questions to post on here, do some research.

I don't know your rim width, so I was just looking at sizes that were close, but the way to know for sure is to find a tire your interested in and look at it's specs. It will tell you recommended rim widths, and the over diameter of the tire. For example the tire that jhm suggested in your size fits 6-8" width rims and is 24" tall. In that particular tire if your rim is 7" wide you can go down to a 195 width tire. The 195/60-15 in that model is 24.3" tall, and would be close enough to fit. Edit: That is just guess on your rim width. If you don't know what that is, then find out. Also, note that just because something fits your rim doesn't mean it will fit on your car. When I say you probly can't raise your car 2" it's because you'd need to go with a 28" tall tire that will likely rub on something. If you do a search, you may be able to find maximum widths that fit your car, but the height will affect that too and it's unlikely that someone else is putting a tire that tall on their car so the same width may not fit with that diameter. You'd have to take the springs out of your car and with the suspension compressed all the way and the steering turned to full lock in both directions measure the clearance of all your tires.

$200 per tire? Kidding... but seriously. $200 for 4 tires you can't be too picky. Good luck finding tires at that price in that size. Really, it's kind of an odd size so that doesn't help your situation. I tried looking for some sizes I thought would work and didn't turn much more up. Tire rack has some for like $62 but your gonna have to pay shipping and in that price range that's a good chunk of the tires total price. Try some local tire shops or (as much as I hate it) Walmart. I'd forget about trying to raise the ride height of your car by that much with bigger tires, it's not a truck. Although I'm not super familiar with the ZXs, I kinda doubt you have the space under the fender for a tire that big even if you could find one that would fit your rims. I guess I may not be being helpful to you, but I'm not sure what else to say.

You don't need a huge truck to tow with. Jeeps do have a pretty short wheelbase though, so I'm sure that will limit you somewhat. But check the tow rating in your Jeep's owner's manual, that will tell you how much you can safely tow. If it's within the limit of the vehicle you're probly okay. Take a test drive with it and start slowly, if you end up with too much trailer for your tow vehicle it'll probly be obvious from the driver's seat. I tow my race car with a GMC Envoy with a 4.2L 6 cylinder. I wouldn't have bought it just for that purpose but it works well. I already had the Envoy as my wife's daily driver and I really don't want to have to park yet another vehicle at my house or pay for gas in a bigger vehicle all year round when I'm not towing.

I may be in the minority, but I've been enjoying the show. Not as good as the original, but it's not bad. My wife will even watch it with me and she's not into cars. The hosts need a bit of time to develop chemistry, it's not something that happens over night, but I find their interactions to be genuine for the most part, and none of the hosts are particularly bad in my opinion.

Forgot to mention, it's a '72 240Z.

Last time I had mine on scales it was about 1983 lbs without driver, and with a couple gallons of gas, it had the full dash, but no interior plastics, all sound deadening removed, the seats replaced with Kirky aluminum shells, no side glass, rear glass replaced with plexy, and no lights. It has no lights now, just brackets to hold some switches and gauges, the harness has been removed, and I ground off many of the now useless brackets for holding stock interior stuff. I need to get it on the scales again eventually to corner balance it.

If you moved the firewall back and sat in the spare tire well, I think it'd fit.