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I was thinking about this and it seems we should be able to calculate this out rather easily with some simple assumptions Pressure = Force / Area So, Force (as in braking force onto the brake pad made by the caliper) = Pressure (pressure inside the hydraulic system) * Area (area of the caliper piston) Area = pi * r^2 The brake pad applies a torque to the rotor to stop the wheels. Torque = moment arm * Force For simplicity we will assume all of the braking force will be applied at the outer edge of the rotor. This will result in the best-case braking capability and will work to accent any differences between our two setups. Next comes force. The brake pad takes the force of the caliper and applies a frictional force on the rotor. To be able to calculate the frictional force on the rotor we would need a lot more information. However since both calipers use the same brake pad we can assume that the ratio of caliper force to frictional force is the same on each setup. Since this is the case we can throw that part out. Note, this is ONLY for comparing brake pads of EXACTLY the same area, dimensions, and compound. So what are we left with? Caliper Force = System pressure * Caliper piston area Caliper piston area = pi * (caliper piston diameter / 2)^2 Stopping Torque = outer rotor diameter * Caliper force If you take the time to put all the equations together you get something like this: Stopping torque = outer rotor diameter * system pressure * pi *(caliper piston diameter / 2)^2 You can see from this equation that the biggest factor is the caliper piston diameter because its value is taken to the power of two. So in our case the 240sx brakes would be inferior because the caliper piston is much smaller. The brake rotor would have to be much larger to get the same braking capability. I put together a spreadsheet but it seems this forum does not allow you to upload Excel files...

280zx and 240sx brakes are nearly identical. A typical 280zx setup usually uses 280zx calipers and 280zx or maxima rotors. This gives you 258mm rotor diameter and a 43 mm caliper piston. The modern motorsports 240sx setup uses 240sx calipers (34mm) and 300zx rotors (289mm). Brake pads are identical. Which one is better? I'm sure there is a formula out there that can tell which is better theoretically but I coulnt say which setup has the advantage. 280zx brakes also suffer from a front bias if you use the toyota 4 piston calipers in the front. I've run HPS pads all last year and have recently ordered HP+ pads to get more rear bias. I'll be installing those next week, very curious to see the results.

When the general manager of the company you work for gives you a bonus check and says "We appreciate your extra hard work, this is for your Datsun. When one of your coworkers grumbles about your loud exhaust when you drive past his house on the way to work every morning, but then admits to missing the v8 exhaust alarm clock when you finally get a quiet daily driver...

I believe I have the stock driveshaft from the 260z. Its probably not what youre looking but may be a decent enough donor to get shortened... Regarding the diameter, I am running the 28.5 mm bar now and it is too stiff for my car. 25.4 would probably be the biggest I'd want, 22 or 23 mm would probably be acceptable as well. Let me know what you got

Yes an s30 one, sorry if I wasnt clear.

High book prices and tuition cost are nothing new. If you want to go through college, especially majoring in a technical field, youre going to be paying a LOT of money. You might save a bit here and there but you cant escape it completely. If you want to save a bit of money look into buying outdated editions of the required textbook. The only differences are usually pictures and homework problems. The homework problems you can get from a friend who got suckered into buying the correct edition, or by checking out the book (usually for free) from the library. The stuff they will teach you the first 3 years (at least) will be stuff that hasnt changed in 100 years. An older book will have the same content without the associated cost. Online homework sucks, but it is what it is. Most professors arent stupid or lazy, they are busy. They have research to do, grad students to assist, research papers and grants to write or review, lectures to prepare for, all while fighting the university bureaucracy to get what they need done. Babysitting students isn't their job so if you're having issues come in for office hours, show your work, ask questions (REAL questions, not like "how do you do #3"), be persistent. If youre having stupid technical issues (such as "X" being mistaken for "x") complain to the professor or TA, if youre honestly in the right they will usually eventually see it your way. Generally though, in lecture classes, homework isnt worth much of your grade. I did well in several classes by acing the midterm and final, while my homework and other scores were very poor.

Going to give this another run to the top, if noone replys I'll just suck it up and buy a brand new one...

My dad always tells me stories about when he first started to lecture undergrads as a grad student/post-doc. All his friends that were like him, still in school getting their masters/phd degrees told him, "take it easy on them, you remember how hard it was for us when we were there." The guys that graduated and got jobs elsewhere said, "give them HELL! You know remember hard it was for us, make sure they feel it too! They have to earn their education!" Awesome! Oh and +1 for browsing HybridZ at work! If I time it just right I'll be done just in time for hour lunch break...

Bit of an old thread but I figure I'll throw out my 2 cents. I bought a complete standalone harness from http://chevythunder.com/ It cost 450 and came with a flashed, ready to run, ECU. It came with all fuses and relays necessary to run the engine, all the transmission connections, tach/speedo/oil pressure ECU outputs for gauges, fuel pump relay, and (at my request) a high amp relay, fuses and wires to run my 2 speed Taurus fan. Lead time is a bit longer than Painless, for example, but I think this is because the seller builds each harness individually. He can, to a degree, actually customize the wire lengths based on where you decide to route the wiring and the final location of the ECU. Additionally he asks you to specify the connector types on some of the engine sensors (in case you a running later model engine, or a truck motor) to make sure everything is going to hook up right. All wires are, of course, labeled and the harness comes with a nice PDF detailing the installation procedure and included steps to correct a couple common problems people get along the way. Regarding installation, everything went perfectly. Once laid out the harness made it very obvious what connector goes where. Once I had it all hooked up the car started from the first turn of the switch (and still starts every time without issue 12000 miles later). For the price this is really a no brainer. It turned the most intimidating (and possibly the most time consuming) part of the swap into a simple 2 hour job.... Can you guys tell I'm pretty happy about how it turned out?

I am looking to buy a 1" (or close to it) front sway bar. Does not need to look super nice. Please message me if you have one available. If it makes a difference to you, I have a 1 1/8" suspension techniques swaybar (with mounts, etc) that I'd be willing to trade for it.

I also wouldnt recommend the R4 pad for street driving. HPS fronts and HP+ rears will probably be as good of a start for you as I can guess at. Looking into other brake pad manufacturers may help find an ideal solution but then again you open up a lot of options and its easy to get overwhelmed. Data between comparing pads between companies is limited or non-existent and claims on performance are subjective.

Brakes are basically a simple hydraulic system: The pressure (force/area) will be the same on both sides of the system and is what makes the hydraulic system work. Due to this principle the forces on one end (master cylinder) will result in a force on the other (brake caliper) the size of which is dependent on the ratio of the two piston areas. The size of the line should make no difference since it is just acting as a "link" between the two ends of the system.

I do not want to seem too critical and deter you from finding your own solution, but I wonder what problem you are trying to solve. Having installed the s13 coilovers on my Z using the adapter sleeves I can honestly say, its not going to get much easier. This is what attracted me to this option in the first place. For the adapter sleeves, you simply chop off most of the strut housing, slip on the sleeve, and weld. There really isnt much more to it. Unless I am missing something, you will still need to modify the strut housing, either by cutting and welding, or drilling holes into it, to attach your new bracket. Youll of course have to design and fab up your own bracket which would accurately position the coilover assembly in a optimal orientation (this may or may not be a challenge in itself). Compared to the adapter sleeve youre not really saving any work for yourself.

My friend has the same brake setup on his 510. He used 1/8 in. steel, and has sold the kits to many 510 owners with great results. I would consider having the two pieces made out of 1/8" steel, then adding an additional 1/8 in. "spacer" plate in the middle. You can have the same alignment holes put in to jig each piece to the next one. With this design you have the added complexity of twice the welding, but you save yourself the added machining time, your call. As far as material thickness for your design, I wouldnt go with anything more than 1/4". If I had to guess I think the material will fail at the welds rather than where you are doing the machining anyway. You can run an FEA on the part but since you are doing welding you are throwing a lot assumptions into the analysis.

The silvermine motors says that their rear calipers use 1.6 in. pistons. The late S130s use 42.9 mm pistons or roughly 1.68 inches. Unless there is something else in the design of the caliper that I'm not aware of, its the size of the pad area and the larger diameter of the rotor on the Mustang setup that will yield any sort of improvement in braking, not piston diameter. I still feel the running a more aggressive pad in the rear will get the brake bias more even. Additionally an adjustable proportioning valve will allow you to fine tune the brake bias if you find that you now have too much brakes and are locking up the rears. Another thought would be possible using Z32 rear calipers with the MM 240sx caliper brackets. Arent the 240sx guys using these as a "bolt on" rear brake upgrade? If so it should be possible to get these to bolt onto our MM 240sx brackets. These calipers have a bigger piston diameter and a larger brake pad area. You will likely run into some issues getting the e-brake to work though and really at this point it may be better to just go with another off-the-shelf brake kit...

You should search a bit more, there are a lot of people on this site, including myself, that run similar, or identical, brake setups. From my experience even with the proportioning valve fully open (no pressure reduction) the fronts lock up much earlier than the rears. I would consider running more aggressive brake pads in the rear to get more rear brake bias and use an adjustable proportioning valve to fine tune the split.

Ive seen the late S130 brakes (essentially the same caliper as the z31, and the same brake pads) run in both the 12 o clock, and 3/9 o clock positions and am curious. The factory mounted the calipers at the 3 and 9 o clock positions. This is may be a more ideal orientation since it locates the bleed screw opening closer to highest point but locating it only horizontally. I run my brakes in such a setup and feel like I have trouble getting ALL the air out of the system without having to raise the caliper manually. I'm in the process of redesigning my brackets and wish to find a better orientation for the brake caliper. The 12 o clock position orients the bleed screw so it points straight up. However, is the 12 o clock position really the best orientation for these calipers? I dont think so since, if you look at the caliper from the rear (picture attached), it seems like the top of the hollow cavity behind the caliper piston (approximated in blue, note: this is outer wall, add 2-3 mm of wall thickness placing the actual inner wall a little lower) is still higher than the bleed screw opening (approximated in red). Wouldnt this area trap, or at least make it difficult for air to easily exit, the caliper out the opening? I personally was thinking perhaps clocking the caliper just less than 3 o clock position, maybe even as far as 45 degrees. This would point the bleed screw upward but not significantly raise the rest of the caliper to sit higher than the bleed screw opening. The air should naturally want to flow right to the opening and be much easier to bleed. Am I missing something?

Me too...

If you make any more in the future to help with welding have the water jet guys cut 2 additional holes in each part of the bracket. If you make these alignment holes close to a diameter of a drill bit you can use them to line up the two pieces in perfect alignment making your job welding will be much easier.

Seats look great! Let us know how well they fit and how they affect seating position. I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do about my own seats and would really benefit from this.

If you installed correctly it should not be difficult. Thread the shock body up and down to raise and lower the ride height, thread the lower spring perch up and down to change the spring preload. Make sure to roll the car back and forth a bit, after each adjustment for the suspension to settle and allow you to take an accurate height measurement. This is all not particularly difficult but may be time consuming. It will take a few tries to get the ride height on each corner exactly where you want it.

Going back to your original post, I think there are few cars that feel similar to a Z. As mentioned, a miata, being so similar in size to a z, gets close. However, when driving fast I dont think any modern cars can quick mimic the "sitting on the rear axle" feel. Also with a "mild v8" youre going to get a power/weight ratio that's going to be quite a bit bigger than pretty much any stock new car out there, so I'm not sure you'll find what youre looking for. If youre really looking for a comparison to a "modern" car a 3rd gen Mazda RX-7 is probably the closest youll come to mimicking the driving experience, power/weight, and handling of a V8 Z car. As far as suspension vs stock, and how much of a real difference it makes. I think its very hard to compare anything to truly stock Z suspension since most of that stuff is 30+ years old. My car had worn out shocks, bushings, tie rod, ball joints, tires, breaks, pretty much everything. Pretty much anything is going to be better than "stock" for me. I'm sure anyone ridden in a Z car with completely stock, but NEW, suspension will verify but I imagine it actually doesnt ride too bad. Unless you understand what exactly youre comparing things too its going to be very hard to make any judgement. FWIW the suspension package you mentioned works really well. I might suggest you add bigger front swaybar too and dont forget a good set of tires. You should have a nice sporty ride that, with the additional power of the V8, will make for a very fun car to drive. Stick to coilovers if you want to run super wide wheels, or when you start having opinions on what spring rates you'd like to use.

Off rock auto's catalog: 280zx/maxima rear rotor: http://info.rockauto.com/getimage/getimage.php?imagekey=1279423&imageurl=http%3A//info.rockauto.com/Centric/12042016.jpg 240sx 5 lug rotor: http://info.rockauto.com/getimage/getimage.php?imagekey=1280198&imageurl=http%3A//info.rockauto.com/Centric/12042062.jpg These look REALLY close, I'd give these a try. The Z31 rotors are too big.

15x10s are going to be hard to find street tires for. Widest readily available street tires I've found are 225/50-15. You have to go to 17s before you have any real tire selection, especially if youre going wide.

I think Cameron said it right, there are a lot of different ways to achieve a similar performance level. From my experience you dont need to stagger the wheels. As mentioned my car has a 1 1/8" front bar and no rear bar 15x9 slicks all around predictably, it understeers at the limit. There are a few things I want to do to reduce this for next year but giving more rear tire definitely wouldnt be useful here. Regarding spacers, what is your concept of quality? 6061-T6 aluminum is what is typically used. China, USA, etc all follow the same process for making it. Theres no way to tell by looking at it if one is any "better" since they look the same. I get my spacers, and pretty much any cutting I need, done at a local laser/water jet cutting place. They generally have lots of different grades of material at many different thicknesses. If you dont have CAD, draw up a drawing on some paper and/or talk to them about what you want done. Spacers are simple enough they can program right from your drawing. I've actually found it cheaper to get something laser cut than buying my own material and doing my own cutting. ZTR how exactly does your ride quality suck? Going with less spring wont necessarily make any improvements. There are a lot of things that affect ride quality tires, shocks, bushings, you name it. When I first put my tokico springs and shocks in, my ride was awful. Only when I replaced all the beat up stock bushings did the ride feel nice and smooth. I also used custom "pillowball" type upper mounts for my suspension, these transferred and awful amount of NVH into the chassis. Going back to stock type upper mounts when I switched to coilovers greatly improved my ride quality. I dont think youll never have a totally smooth ride given youre on coilovers and low profile tires. On bad sections of the highway my car sucks to drive.