cygnusx1

Yup, pitch black. All taken in one shot in 30 seconds exposure.

30 Seconds, darkness, a flashlight, and a bit of post processing.

You need to increase the fuel pressure with an FMU or get larger injectors and tweak the AFM, or get larger injectors and a engine management system. I have a really nice Begi FMU (probably the best) that I am willing to sell. PM if interested. With a Walbro fuel pump I ran 14psi boost with the FMU making 60psi of fuel under boost (stock injection). It was reliable and had more in it. I put down 265rwhp/300rwtq with it.

That' kind of what I'm saying.

Very nice! I wonder if you really need them to be that strong though? I mean, the stock setup, although rough under power, can hold quite a bit of torque as we have seen on this site. Then comes the CV upgrade from the 280ZX's which is a bit cheaper than this kit and reported to be extremely strong. Is this Porsche-Type setup really that much better? If you are in a pinch and building an all out racer, this is certainly a good deal simply because it's turnkey. However, I don't think it's one of those must-have upgrades if you are on a budget or building a fast street Z. Nice to have options though and this looks well engineered.

Order a trans rear seal, a front seal and gasket if your going for it. Usually they don't leak but why not replace them. While you're at it, I have a short shift kit for your trans, if you are interested.

A failing throwout bearing typically gets noisy everytime you press on the clutch pedal. It can sound like an old, metal, roller-skate wheel. (now I am dating myself). The wet rod at the cylinder is certainly a sign that you should rebuild or replace the hydraulics but you said that the slave was actuating fine. A small, slow, fluid leak won't cause your problem. Before you drop the trans, confirm that the slave cylinder moves through a full stroke, and returns, when the clutch is depressed and released. If it does, then your problem is downstream; somewhere in the fork or clutch throwout assembly inside the bell.

It's not your imagination. It could be a rougher engagement on the stick shift because you are "turning/nudging" the whole drivetrain to engage the synchro teeth if the clutch is engaged. Normally with your foot on the clutch, the stick will engage smoother, even when standing still. I am going to say possible broken/bent clutch fork, assuming the hydraulics are working correctly. The T/O bearing would have, or probably would have given you a warning before total failure. A bent or broken fork can fail silently. I drove my Z from Central Avenue, Yonkers to Putnam Valley, with no clutch pedal. 35 miles, mostly highway. Roll start and shift very, very carefully and infrequently, don't stop, roll to red lights.

Don't take wooden nickels and don't take rusty Datsuns. Well, you can take it but you better be prepared for a ton of work, money, time, and a place to do it all.

Big Phil was able to get his front center caps on. I think he crushed the metal dust covers as far as they would go and then cut out some of the cap. I just painted my hub cover to match the wheel center (black) and I kind of like the look without the wheel center cap.

Technically, it should work if the gasket is the correct material. The only issue is that it won't be as effective as it could be, due to all the heat radiating off of the exhaust manifold. I think it's definitely something that might work in conjunction with other shieldings designed to keep exhaust heat from getting to the manifold. In some high performance applications and turbo'd cars, I would worry about the insulating gasket not allowing the exhaust manfold to transfer heat back to the head. I am not sure if the exhaust manifold needs the head as a heat sink or not. I have heard of overheating the factory exhaust manifold and warping them. My 2cents. With the stock motor in my 76 280Z, I had used Teflon washers to isolate all the factory fuel rails to curb vapor lock with some success.

Here is my plane base on what you guys said: 1) Take the rotors to get surfaced. They are slightly bumpy. 2) Check the cleanliness of the pistons. 3) Measure the wear of the pads for even-ness. 4) Take the washer out of the left TC rod bushing. 5) Do a routine fluid change. 6) Take some measurments of toe and caster again. 7) Ignore difference in wheelbase.

Race tracks don't have much crown, if any. Would it be safe to say that correcting the wheel wheelbase differential for a race car would be OK? I'll guess an answer at that by saying, race car suspension setup would be so far off of a mild street setup, that the wheelbase difference would be shadowed by other angle changes anyhow. Correct? I don't want to jump to conclusions yet, because if I just blame it on road crown or wheelbase differential, I could miss a more serious problem. This has turned into quite an interesting thread. http://beluap.tripod.com/crash5.html "Unequal caster causes the vehicle to pull to the side with the least positive caster. Unequal Caster Effect - to offset road crown, the top left steering knuckle is always leading the right; the right side has more positive caster." My car does NOT pull during cruise, only under medium to hard braking. But it does not pull hard. It kind of settles into a slight rightward tendency...if you can imagine. This caster differential/wheel base differential could be it.

Looks real nice. Those tires are a great deal. They are sticky too. The tires are molded in the old Dunlop mold for the D40-M2 tire which was a kick-a*s tire in it's day.

Wow, I didn't know that about the left to right wheelbase being off. I wonder if it's because they use only one rear control arm design flipped over left to right? Taking the spacer out would be fairly easy to try first.

This is not a new problem, the car has had this tendency for as long as I can remember but is more pronounced with loads generated by the AZC brakes. The TC bushings are Poly in front of the bucket, and factory rubber on the back of the bucket. When I measured wheelbase on my Z a couple of years ago I noticed that the left front wheelbase was 1/4" shorter than the right. The left front wheel was also 1/4" further back in the wheel well arch compared to the right front wheel. I put a 1/8" or so washer behind the left poly TC bushing to push the left front forward. This made the wheelbase match left and right. I did check caster with a bar, spirit level, strings and a tape measure. It appeared to be pretty even with my crude measurment system. (geometry is my forte) Maybe it's time to get on a REAL alignment machine and get a readout of all the angles. I will also check the calipers for free motion. I doubt it's the calipers but sometimes it's the simplest thing. The ONLY thing I have never changed are the spindle pin bushings. They always appeared to be in good enough condition and I can't detect any flex or odd toe in the rear. I can't gaurantee that the spindle pin bushings are not flexing under brake loads, though the car is dead stable and straight, on the highway and hard accel. My tire wear has always been nearly even all around.

You can attach files to your posts. You can also host your pictures in your free gallery here on HybridZ. Go to the photo album section. http://album.hybridz.org/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=8779

My brake lines are new with the brake kit. I also thought it might be the crown on the road so I tried straddling the double yellow to get as neutral of a surface as I could. It pulls the same. Tire pressures are even all around. buZy, The brake bias test is a great idea. If I go more rear bias and it gets worse, I know the problem could likely be from the rear wheels or vice versa. I will double check my alignments, toe, caster, camber to make sure they are right on.

Last night EvilC and I met up for the weekly Bear Mountain car show. This morning mikeatrpi emailed me a link to this: http://forums.corvetteforum.com/showthread.php?t=2037867 I don't know how he found it so quickly....beware Mike is watching! Clive and I pulled in behind the Ferrari F355. It seems that as we pulled in, there was a crowd of people that were following the Ferrari and the two Z's. We parked along side eachother, and the crowd walked right past the F355 and swarmed our Z's. I stepped back and watched the puzzled look on the Ferrari drivers face. As most people had their back to the Ferrari and were blown away by the Datsun's. We met a few new Datsun guys also that will probably be stopping by Hybridz soon. The best part of the Bear Mountain show is the drive there and back. Cool air and twisty roads! I want to hide a recorder in Clives car. You hear things like, "Holy S, a dotson with a Corvette motor!"

The only uses I can think of for this are for bumpers and plastic trim, like the rear light bezels on the 260/280's. Painting the entire car chrome is not my taste.

I might already know the answer to this but I will ask your opinions. Yes, I have tha AZC racing brakes all around but when I hit the brakes really hard, the car kind of tends to go right. It doesn't pull the steering wheel much but the car tends to want to go towards the right shoulder a little. If I let go of the steering wheel and brake hard, the steering wheel rotates right about 10 degrees and holds there as the car drifts slowly right. It wont steer all the way, just about 10 degrees and hold there. I don't think that the calipers are sticky or air in the lines because the brakes feel incredible and stop on a dime with great modulation and feel. They also release cleanly. My hunch: -Wheel alignment off due to a worn bushing causing the wheels to shift under braking. -Uneven length T/C rods. (I have a 1/8" or so washer on one, behind the front bushing, to make it longer so that the left and right wheelbases match). -Worn REAR OUTER spindle-pin bushings. (the ONLY original bushings still in my Z). Everything else is Poly or aluminum/delrin. The car has no crash history that I know of, or can see. The ride heights are even all around.

I have a lot of bike experience. Raced BMX, Freestyled BMX, Raced Mountain Bike, and road a lot of Road Bike riding as well. I also sold and serviced bikes for four years in a local bike shop. They all work out different areas and muscles. Any one bike style is NOT a substitute for the other. Now the real workout comes from what you are doing on the bike, not the bike itself. I can ride a BMX bike and jump curbs casually, all day long. On the otherhand, a race-style BMX sprint is going to wind me out in about 2 minutes. The same applies to the other bikes. Get on a road bike on a level terrain and try to hold an average speed of 35-40mph. Let me know how long you can do it for. If you average 15-20, you should be able to ride all day long, no sweat. Mountain bikes. Where I ride you can see elevation changes of 400-500 feet in 1/4 mile. THAT is some steep terrain. Most people say that for every hill you climb, there is a downhill to assist you. Well two things that non-riders miss: 1) Downhill on a mountain bike over technical terrain is NOT a resting period. 2) Climb 500 feet takes about 20-25 minutes. Descent 500 feet takes 5 minutes. Timewise, it feels like you are ALWAYS climbing. Whatever you pick to ride. IT'S NEVER THE BIKE. It's your LEGS and LUNGS. This applies to a $50 bike and a $5000 bike, no different. Spend more and get a better bike. Support your local bike shops! A fake bike won't make a you a better rider per-se. It will improve your cardio when used properly and may allow you to spend more time on your real bike. Sidebar: when I trained, I used rollers. Roller have a few benefits: 1) You are balancing while you train which makes it more fun and realistic. 2) If you are using clipless pedals or pedal straps, the rollers will train you to pedal in SMOOTH FULL CIRCLES or else the bike will start bouncing. 3) You can't stop pedaling or you fall over. My dad was a VERY competitive bike racer who road raced in the Italian Alps and here in the USA for many years. He also rode and trained with the US Olympic Team. He taught me a lot about cycling. He used to ride from the Bronx to Bear Mountain, NY and back, three days a week before work. Anyone unfamiliar with this area, that is about a 100 mile round trip over moderately hilly terrain. He rode a '54 Campagnolo equipped Pogliaghi (we still have it), and now rides an Aluminum Bianchi at age 72. I still have my Legnano mini racing bike from the early seventies that he bought me.

?? OK Tony, now answer this: Who's "they"? LOL. Also: "San Maru, a Korean restaurant on Telegraph at 43rd. St. in Oakland"

Is it real or is it friction? I hear lots of people saying my clutch needs to be adjusted. Now I'm not a trained mechanic but I've turned about every wrench and every bolt on several vehicles. When people say, "I have to adjust the clutch", I always here that little, evil, mechanic guy, that sits on my shoulder, say, "I'd love to see this dude actually go and try to adjust the clutch. I wonder what he is going to adjust first...hehe". As far as I can tell, in a hydraulic clutch system, the only adjustment might be the length of the slave rod or the length of the pedal rod. Cable systems are generally self adjusting or you can take up slack in the cable by lengthening the cable housing. These adjustments will only affect the position of your pedal relative to the engagement point of the pressure plate. They won't affect how "good" your clutch grabs, unless the linkage keeps your pressure plate from pressing. Hydraulic clutch metaphor I just made up: Think of it as a stick in your hand (hydraulic fluid, pedal, and pistons). You have to push a bottle off of a fence with the stick. If the stick is too short, you need to lean in first (dead space in the travel). If the stick it too long, it knocks the bottle off before you push the stick (slipping clutch never fully engages). Make the stick the right length so that it just touches the bottle, and with a small nudge the bottle falls off the fence (just right). Air in the system would be like having a limp stick. And who wants a limp stick? Get it? Anyone care to tell me otherwise. I am willing to learn something new about adjusting clutches. You are not really adjusting a clutch, you are adjusting a linkage. Rant over.

I would def. check timing curve. going to start a new post about adjusting clutches....or not.