cygnusx1

My car has no issues.

Carbon Fiber mirrors? Center consoles? Inspection Lids? Emblems? Just suggestions. I'm not sure if they exist already.

Taxi service and go to work. Get a paycheck take care of your self, and fix your cars. Find some new friends in ND, and a get good mechanic. I've been through ND, you will find friendly people willing to help out.

It is engine RPM dependant and it exhibits itslef in the rear suspension? Strange? You could be stressing the part only in the powerband. Check the diff mounts too.

A bound up or severely siezed u-joint in the half shafts might do this also. You might have a partially broken u-joint.

A level surface, strings, tapes, bubble level, ruler, and some basic geometry math are all you need to get good home garage alignment. Special tools make it easier, but most of them can be home brewed. SOH CAH TOA.

Here is a photochop I did...BRE-370Z anyone?

Nissan Official Release. http://www.nissanusa.com/370z/ I like the lights. The door handles are a bit much, I agree, but I will probably paint them to match the body in a few years anyhow. I'm planning to get one in 2010.

That's a good plan too. One giant leap at a time with success at every step is better than three giant leaps at once with unknown results. Although, dropping the turbo motor into the red Z is going to be quick and painless. Wiring, well that's some labor but not a mystery. It should be "procedural" to get the L28ET into the new car and running on MS. Once it's in and running with all the bolt-ons in place, the 3.0 can be built on a stand and swapped in easily on a rainy weekend, almost turnkey. BESIDES, I bet we can make 350+rwhp out of that L28ET before you even finish building the 3.0. Clive, need a parts list? I have it in my head.

Driving in the snow and ice takes practice. Every season it takes me a few days to get used to it again. It looks like you were practicing alright!

I didnt have much spare time at work so i quickly drew up the model with guesstimated dimensions. I would like to model this with exact dimensions but I would need to measure all the parts up. The car is sort of in storage but I might get a chance over the weekend. I think I made the center of the caliper offset from the bracket about 2". The force from the brake friction is applied in the center hole (of the fake caliper model) in an upward direction. The rotor would drag the pads upwards in the caliper so the force is applied upwards (perpendicular to a radian on the axle) in the photo above. John, it looks like the direction of deflection in my model is consistent with what you saw.

Most of the bracket deflection was sideways. And 12 thousands was at the point on the caliper that moved the most. It's the red parts of the image attached above.

It only moved less than 12 thousands of an inch in the CAD model. Not nearly enough to cause that kind of contact with the rotor. In reality, the strut tube mounts may flex, the caliper may flex and the bolts may flex. A total movement of about 30-50 thousands would be believable. Still not sure if that's enough to cause what you saw.

2300lb car, 1.25g braking, 80% braking up front, 24" tire, 10" diameter to the center of the pad. After some math, the force at the center of each caliper is about 2400 pounds force. 6061 Aluminum bracket. According to Solidworks, the maximum deflection is at the backside of the caliper of about 0.012". I pretty much ignored caliper flex by modeling the caliper as a solid block so that I could see bracket flex. I am going to post a screenshot of the deflection analysis. This is a rough guess. With steel, the deflection was less than half of aluminum.

Any estimates on the G-force generated under max braking? I am guesstimating the forces on the brackets for a rough analysis.

That seems like A LOT more flex than the elastic limit of aluminum. One would think with that much deflection, there would be total failure. Very weird. I might draw up a bracket in Solidworks tomorrow and do a stress/deflection analysis on it after calculating the vectors involved.

Update....yes I flip and flop on a lot of decisions, but at least I think a lot before making a decision. I must have looked at 50 Z cars to buy for either track use or collectable in which case I would use my street turbo Z for track days. I finally made a long term plan that makes overall sense with my life right now. Keep the turbo Z. Install a 4 or 6point cage, harness bar, race seat, harness, fire extinguiser. Use it as a drive-to-the-track-time trial car with good street tires. Keep the 2002 WRX as my DD until it has close to 200K miles on it, estimating around early 2010. Pick up an off-lease or demo 370Z to replace the WRX as my DD. Keep the WRX on minimal insurance as a foul weather DD. I can keep the 370Z in my one-car garage, and the 76TurboZ in the car-shed. Thaks for all the advice about the towing. With the limited track days I plan, it doesn't sound like it's worth the hassle. If I break down at the track, I'll rent a u-haul for a day or two to bring it home. OK now, what color 370Z?

It truly is safer on the track than in the streets. Sorry to see this David. Fortunately, I think parts for that car should be abundant. Good luck.

Drool!! Slurp!!

That is going to make a really nice street turbo car. You just might like it better than your LS1 Z. OK let the flames begin!

Hey Clive, isn't that the Craigslist ad I linked you too? No kudos for me?

Based on the knowledge that a spark plug will "blow out" under extremely high boost, I think it might be correct that at BDC the mixture would be easier to ignite but I have a hunch that the energy from combustion would be very low at that point. It might ignite easily but burn slowly undoer near zero compression..just a hunch. I could easily be wrong. Any pyro experts here? I think that in your quote above, they could also be referring to just the difficulty of jumping an arc across the plugs electrodes at TDC as compared to BDC.

Thanks Jon. Note the speedo on the upper left of the video. Insane.

David, the air is thicker in upstate NY. lol.