BLKMGK

Lone - one interesting thing to note about the Cobras, after awhile that nice skin had to be REPLACED! Yup, that's what happens when you bolt steel to aluminum or vice versa - electralosys (sp?!). The two different metals set up a current and end up eating one another up. Something to bear in mind with aluminum radiatorsheads and steel blocks...

Umm guys, why not just mount the 302 much like the JTR mounts are done? A friend did this with his and it seemed to work well. Best part was that it put the T5 shifter right through the stock hole...

Nah, not riled up just trying t give you good advice is all. I bought the silly book a year ago, have read it dozens of times, and when I finally pull the motor sometime soon I'll have a darned good idea as to what I'm doing - I hope. It's just something good to read so that you understand the steps, what's needed, and where you can go wrong if you're not careful. Sure, there are gaps inthe book and those of us here who've done the sweap can help, but it helps lot's to have read it first is all. (shrug) Heh, you in auto shop? If so you can probably make the mounts in class and maybe get help doing the actual swap too - that would be a neat project. Just don't let some jealous dork trash the car when you're in another class. A friend of mine taught that class out here - kids did some of the meanest things to other people's nice cars...

Yup, our water pump went blooey too. Had my friend the Mustang mechanic fix it for me - he's cheap and does good work. He HATES doing plug changes on those suckers though and when it's time to do mine I'm not sure he'll be willing With our MPG we need to consider doing them soon I'm afraid, plug wires wouldn't hurt either I'm betting. I MADE the coil wire we fried - at 7am on a work morning that was no fun!

Same here on the Ammeter - dump it! I know when I unplugged mine the whole car went dead until I bolted it together. Tech tip: do this work with the battery unhooked! Tape the resulting wires carefully with many layers - a short there would be "very bad". Having at leat a warning light for the battery voltage would be nice but... I'll live. I'm replacing those three gauges with oil pressure (mechanical), water temp (mechanical), and fuel level (electrical - duh). I'd consider maybe a warning light for some of those functions too but that'll be down the road. Still have to mount my gauges and replace the vent panel - silly thing is a PITA to R&R.

Hrm, can you say OptiSpark? I'm not real clear on how to troubleshoot those things but people bitch up a storm about the LT1 ignition systems. Apparently some parets ARE optical and can get screwed up with dirt - yick! Head over to one of their discussion forums and see what's shaking - I'll bet someone can help you out. You did say it was raining like mad right? We had water get into the coils on the Impalla and it would refuse to start. Tinkering with it I finally found a bad coil wire that finally arced itself in two pieces - literally. Hope your problem is just a plug not firing man....

Just about any decent chassis shop ough tto be able to undertake this. Talk to some of the drag racers in your area or better yet the circle track guys. Even out here we've got folks that can do this - it takes time and piles of money but when they're done you've got a shell of a car and a jungle gym inside Last I saw they were doing a shoebox Chevy of about 1956 vintage. Cut out the whole floorpan and the firewall forward was nothing but tubing. Very nice but NOT cheap. Great way to change the suspension to most anything you want I suppose. 'Vette rear anyone?

14inch rotors? For the street? You're only going to be able to use as much braking as the tires can hold - 14inches is a hell of a lot of leverage on those brakes. Are you sure you need that much braking? I've got 13inch brakes on the front of my Mustang, a car that weights about 3500lbs, and it stops well enough that I've had people slide past me on the shoulder to avoid hitting me (shiver). When I hit the brakes in that thing I really do have to watch the rearview and let up in order to not get hit by cars with lesser brakes. The Z weighs less and shouldn't need as much brake IMO. Mike, what size are your Outlaw brakes? 12inches?

Mike, the reasons that Heim joints or more normally found on "race cars" has more to do with their service life than transmitted vibrations. Heim joints wear out faster than rubber bushings and will need to be replaced from time to time. Oddly enough - the 3rd gen RX7s apparently have Heim joints from the factory in some locations! I've got no idea what they've done to protect them or what sort of lifetime these things have but it's long enough to be used on a production car. Buy the best joints you can, Teflon coated or whatever and you'll have a longer life before they must be yanked...

Oh man - top end with NOS? Yipes! Watch your temps doing that, you wouldn't be the first person to get a surprise hitting the button too long. Supras are indeed nasty but you've probably got half of what he paid in your Z and I'll bet he was a bit shocked I looked for a Supra before the RX - they're too darned expensive stock much less modified. Was your car getting loose on the top end? Heh, time to get a speedo!

Personally, I think getting some of th erubber bushings out of the way will be as nice as th eadded adjustability. I just hope that the road feel isn't "too much". My car already has a bit of rumble through the wheel thanks to a solid steering isolator. We'll see, suspension is what I'm going to be doing as soon as I get a few small things out of the way.

Hey Pauli - you're just up the street from me My Mustang has Dynomax mufflers. These seem to be pretty quiet but you still get some rumble. What I REALLY REALLY want to hear is one of those ApexI or Greddy big mufflers like what's on my RX with a V8 in front of it! Just imagine the little punks when you look like one of them and then open up a can of SBC V8 whoop ass on 'em. Yeah, I'd LOVE to hear that - if it's quiet enough I might spring for a set but as costly as they are I don't want to be the pioneer .

JTR book has some very good stuff in it. Things liek wiring, adjusting the tach for the new V8, how to move the brake lines to keep them from frying, suggestions on how to do the exhaust system - and how not to! You'll be needing the info on the hood latch, clutch master unless you run an auto, and information on throttle cable too. Buy the book. You don't want your car to end up looking liek a V8 Z I saw downtown racing once. It had a plastic fuel cell strapped inthe hatch and a - get this - shoe string tied to the throttle bellcrank to pull the carb's throttle blades! Scariest damn thing I've seen in awhile. Do it right or you'll regret it and oding it right means spending a bit on the JTR book. If you want to get it real cheap try E-Bay, there's usually a copy or two for sale over there

Ah yes, Southside Lift Bars - been there, done that. The reason the bars rip the torque boxes is because when you hang a corner there's no bushing there to "give" and ALL of that torque to the side goes right into the spotwelded torque boxes. Yeah, mine are cracked up too! A Panhard rod fixes that and a Griggs torque arm is best so that the top links can be eliminated. Thankfully the Z has no such monkey motion that I can see. The Mustang holds the rear in with 4 links that are intentionally made to bind up. The Z had a more or less rigidly held center section with arms holding the wheel hubs if memory serves. Ride WILL get harsher when you remove the bushings but I don't think Nissan relied upon binding or bushings to hold things together quite like Ford did. If you look up front there's a funky rod keeping the arm from moving forward and back. I do think an A shaped arm with two sets of mounts on the body would've been better but hey - it works okay

Hrm, I just got about 15mpg on my last tank and I do NOT take it easy Our Impalla SS gets just a little better but doesn't require premium. Guages are okay and there are warning lights - swapping them would ruin the look I'm afraid. The odometer is nice and I'm waiting for Autometer to release a Phantom electronic speedo with an LCD now. Heh, I've actually been to your site before Don't supose you were able to salvage the Apexi PFC from the wreck and still have it? With the exception of a hi-flow cat and some sort of computer work I'm mostly all done. I'll bump the boost some, replace the turbos (on the way), maybe a J&S, but not too much more. Some reliability stuff perhaps - AST, radiator, pop-off valve. (shrug) Tomorrow I'll be working on the Z though.

Backup battery, pager for the alarm, strobe light inside and outside the car, maybe have th estereo come on full blast too. Heh, makes a false alarm a real bitch though huh?

Here's a link the RX discussion group about this car -> http://www.rx7club.com/ubb/Forum8/HTML/001293.html I swear it reminds me a bit of some of the bashing that the V8 Zs get elsewhere! Yeah, the rotary motor is REALLY sweet but it's more fragile than a piston motor. It requires good A/F and strict maintenance - knock will kill it in a heartbeat. With the specific output of that motor I guess I can understand why! He's claiming that he can get th eweight balance to be much the same. His shipping weights for the assembled rotary and LT1 are pretty favorable too. The V8 will certainly change the character of the car, no doubt, but I'm not sure that the car will be unbalanced or handle too poorly. Heh, anyone considered a rotary motor into a Z yet? He's got a 3rotor for sale He really did give it the old college try. Several motors including the one imported from Japan that he decided not to use. His power requirements from that were such that he was afraid it would pop right away. I'm trying hard to keep mine in one piece myself and am proceeding with the upgrades cautiously - I understand his worries (grin). I'll hope to hit a bit over 300 and maybe 350HP. Heh, if you've got a WEB site shoot me an URL. I'm ALL EARS for parts sources and need a few stock parts already. This car has had a checkered life it seems but runs well! Hrm, should we move this to the high-tech forum?

Is your oil pan baffled? Is the pickup WELDED to the pump? I had one actually break a weld once on a V8 Vega and it would suck air causing the oil pressure ot drop. Hard acceleration can also cause the oil to shift to the back of the pan - not cool! I'd be hunting the cause of this if I were you. Is the guage accurate? Is it a mechanical aftermarket or an electrical guage that could have a bad connection?

Well, since we've brought it up... check out this car -> http://www.rrow.org/rrowmembers/3rdGen/LaBreck/jim_labrecks_rx7.htm and then check this one out, it's the same car -> http://members.tripod.com/~grannys/3rdgenrx7chevyv8.html Sound familier? Someone posted a link to this car bemoaning what he was doing. I pointed him this way since I figure we're closer to kin than they are and are using much the same hardware. Of real interest is his use of the stock ECU for the LT1 and the use of LT1-Edit software. I wonder if that ECU could be used on our cars or if it would even make sense? Anyway, I'm having fun with mine and appreciate the offer for help - got a passenger side door pull in black? Coworker of mine broke it about 2days after I bought the car (sob). This sucker hits 60mph in second gear - scary fast. I can hardly wait to get the Z running to see how it runs too I'll post some pics of both as soon as I get off my butt and get the server up here.

Quite a bit of Mike's stff is based off of production parts - and as such has dust seals The Outlaw calipers on his bigger stuff is pure aftermarket though but I'd be surprised if it didn't have dust shields too. Really though - how much of a difference does it make? Obviously the OEMs do it because of the high number of miles etc. but I don't think most of us are building daily drivers here anyway

Mike, my blue car is still up for being parted out. Just not had time and it's been damned cold. Anyway, if you need a set of arms to play with I may have some available. I know one of th earms on my red car is dinged so I may want to swap it out anyway. Red car is now home at last and so is the motor so as time allows I'm up for swapping stuff, building stuff, and generally getting the show on the road! So - suspension first or motor swap?

How's this? http://www.greddy.com/profecguide.html I've found PDF files for my Greddy elbow and my BOV on the 'net so surely it must exist somewhere. You migh talso try in some of these forums -> http://www.rx7club.com/cgi-bin//Ultimate.cgi?action=intro&BypassCookie=true If you go up the URL you'll find forums for the Supra folks too. Between the RX7 and Supra people you shoudl be able to get all the advice you'd want for that box How high you turning it up? (grin)

Yup, Excessive Motorsport East. 703-331-1422 and ask for Chris or Tory. Tell them Jim sent you. They can have it drop shipped to your home I believe. BTW - I recently saw one of th elatest kits for the Camaros. It had some sort of "hi-flow" intercoolers on it. Yep, a PAIR of intercoolers about the size of shoe boxes on either side of the bumper - yuck! IMO for a Z I'd buy one of the kits that doesn't include an intercooler and then fab something up front liek the turbo guys do. Either that or get the measurements for the ATI intercooler and see if it will fit up front - they've got bunches of them but you'd probably have to speak to ATI directly about sizes. The intercooler on my Mustang would PROBABLY work on a Z but I cannot swear to that. I hope to maybe do a blower one day on the Z but I think the swap comes first

No problem Scottie, just making sure folks know I like forced induction is all and I did catch the play on words My current RX doesn't whistle though which is a shame - the Greddy BOV and elbow may fix that this weekend though. Even the V8 didn't make much more than a whoosh - used to really mess with people's heads with that one! Darn RX is pulling funds from my Z too (sigh). As for a twin turbo SBC... LOT'S of power! But do you really need it? Might it simply rip the Z apart? There's lot's of complexity going on there. Maybe a single turbo would work well but the crossover piping would be a PITA. I note that LOT'S of Mustang racers are switching to turbos and the big ATI blowers. Turbos are really sweet but you'll have heat, plumbing, and all sorts of other stuff to contend with. Do yourself a favor and consider the simplicity of an ATI blower

Black?! Mike, I thought the body colored bumpers looked damn nice - in fact I just got mine painted to match my car! Seriously, I think the white looks pretty good to me. Maybe take a coouple of pics and retouch them in Photshop to see if you like the look before doing it for real. My bumpers were flat black and showed all sorts of smudges and whatnot where people touched them etc. - am glad to be rid of it and the weight too!