BLKMGK

Lately after all the trouble I've had diddling with my headlights the subject of lighting has been near and dear to me While speaking to a friend at work the other day he mentioned how he's like to get HID lighting installed on his car. This got the wheels turning but these setups are usually pretty expensive and I've got no idea how you'd go about installing them in a Z since most newer cars run completely different headlight setups but... Flipping through my latest issue of Street Rodder I came across a company making HID lights for street rods. Sure enough upon visiting their WEB site I found that they've got at least one setup that claims to install wherever an H4 bulb has been used. Bingo - I've got H4s in my car! http://www.rmhid.com/hot_rods.htm Still a bit pricey and not something I'm rushing out to buy, especially with the nice bright lights I've now got but... I think I'll try some of the white or blue H4s a bt later, they're cheap enough, and if I'm still not happy I'll consider the HIDs. Anyone else interested in HID lighting?

Update... Spent a bit of quality time under the car this afternoon. Front mount on diff looks perfect, no tears. There's no strap above the nose of the diff though and I thought there was supposed to be one - yes? Should I do the JTR wrap the wire around the diff mod? (smile) The bushings nearest the pumpkin on the arms looked a bit rough though and it just so happens I had some urethane replacements. All bolts broke free fine and after a bit of cussing I've got them swapped. I didn't do the ones on the outside ends near the wheels though but will in the future. Hopefully it'll go as well as these did! I have not yet driven the car so I don't know if anything I did has helped the clunk but I'm doubting it. Any ideas as to what might be causing the clunk? during hard cornering the noise is kind of alarming both the driver and to passenger Mike, next time you're out my way give me a shout and I'll let you take it for a spin - I'd love to hear your opinion on this darned noise!

I'm glad to hear it can be done! Over on Zcar I'd read several posts that seemed to indicate that setting up gears inthese rears could be difficult. It also sounded like there might be some carrier issues but it wasn't clear. This is GOOD news! Now, if I could just find myself an LSD with the purty aluminum cover

Congrats Mike! I have to say that of all the things I'm going to have to do to make this swap happen the car jetting is the one I'm looking forward to the least! I've never tuned a carb before and most of the guys I know are also more at home with fuel injection. I'm not putting fuel injection on the car straight out becasue of cost and ebcasue I'd liek it to actually run first but the carb still worries me. I'm going to have the engine builder reccomend both a carb and an initial jetting but I sure hope I don't have to mess with it much! The motor that's in it now has triple Webbers. Talk about over carbed! It runs rich, smells a bit of gas, and the throttle response is lousy due to the lack of vaccum. It's got just about all the problems I've always associated with carbs (sigh). I hope the new motor doesn't get delayed too long! Mike, are you going to take the car to Woodbridge and dyno it? Some of the Mustang guys have been telling me very good things about that guy and they even had a 68 Mustang PEG the dyno not long ago! Whew, that's some serious HP and I think it might have been a street car.

That's what I figured. Not bad stuff as I'm sure they've sized it to pass tech but if you had a choice and money was no object I'd go for cro-mo, followed by DOM mild steel, and then the regular seamed stuff. (shrug) Looking at their prices that's a pretty tough deal to beat if you're on a budget. Autopower also makes some good stuff but it's pretty pricey compared to S&W. Installed correctly there's nothig at all wrong witht he S&W stuff - those guys have been in business a good long time and should know their stuff.

I'd think it would be a bit cheaper and easier to get an LSD out of a turbo 300Z at the wrecking yards. I think that would give you a 3.7 rear and an LSD. The cost of a new LSD at Nissan is apparently pretty rude and from what I've read not many people can properly setup rear gears for these cars anyway. What rear have you got now and what's our reason for wanting the 3.15? If it's simply to reduce cruising RPM then Pete's right on the money - go for an overdrive tranny...

Whereabouts are you located? I've seen at least one shop on the 'net that specializes in this repair "while you wait" and there's a shop local to me in VA that claims to do this work to - Datsun Power I think is their name. If you're going to do it yourself what's the time frame you want it done in? Doing a full tube front end would be lighter and certainly tricker but do you want to spend all that effort doing it? The boxed front end would probably be pretty darned strong, probably stronger than stock, how long would that take? What's most important to you? A real bummer that this happened to you, I'd be willing to bet that there's rust hiding in just about everyone's frame rails (sigh)...

Okay, I've heard about the infamous "clunk" in the rear of the Z cars. I've got a 72 that seems to have this problem and when I have a chance I've got a solid mount ready to put in - once I take it off my parts car (grr). Anyway, in addition to clunking I also get a pretty ominous creak or clunk going around turns in a "spirited" manner. Is this also being caused by the rear diff mount or might I have other problems? When I had it on a lift I checked the bottom side out pretty good but didn't check the rear suspension bolts - could one be loose causing this? I did notice that the passenger control arm must havestruck somethnig as there was a mild scape in the undercoating and a decent sized ding in the arm. It still looks sound but with this creakclunk during hard cornering I'm wondering. Doesn't seem to happen in smooth off ramps just fairly rough turns. (sigh) Ideas? I do intend to get under it and check it over but I've never worked on one of these types of rears before... Thanks!

Awhile back someone was asking about tire sizes and whatnot. I posted a tire formula I'd found in a local mag for calculating tire height etc. for each sizing but I think it got zapped along with a few others. I was too tired to look it up again but I found somehting better today http://www.powerdog.com/tiresize.cgi This ought to help everyone figure out tire sizes! I'm running 225 50 15s now and am a little short I think. I'm wondering about 235 40 17's now (smile). Hopew this helps some folks out - found it posted on ZCar.com

Actually I'm already looking into getting a welder myself - electric service in the garage might be an issue though as it's pretty weak right now. Practice practice practice is what it takes to weld well. Unfortunatly it's pretty tough to tell how well you've penetrated the pipe without cutting it open and looking and that of course defeats the purpose I spent some time at a local gas company when I was younger. Those guys have to have PERFECT welds and are tested on a regular basis. I'll never forget sitting in one of the offices looking at three examples of welds. One of them had perfect penetration and looked awesome, another was too little heat and barely penetrated, the last was too much and really went through the pipe. Each of them were labeled with what was wrong and only one was labeled as "passing". The kicker? From the outside each one of the pipes looked damn near the same! Welds looked like butter and perfect to me - from the outside. Cutting through part of each weld and through the pipe in a cross section told the tale - wow. Welds on a cage don't have to be THAT exacting and I'm dying to learn how to weld but for me I'm going to spend the extra cash and not sweat it. The cage I'm doing won't be the S&W cage so it'll require custom bent tubing and that would be a bitch to learn too as I'd be sure to screw up a few times. On top of that it's cro-mo which is harder to weld correctly. I considered mild steel but my chassis guy only uses DOM steel and that's almost as expensive so... I would be interested in knowing what steel the S&W cage uses. I assume from the price it's mild steel but is it DOM? If it's got a seam in the pipes it's not DOM which is what I'm assuming judging from the price. If it's DOM then grab it and run - that's a damned good price! DOM is "better" but not that much better an dnot required by sanctioning bodies in the classes we'd run in so no biggie. To each is own, heh my 10cents worth anyway

I'd get a pro to do it and I'd do it at a chassis shop. A well equipped chassis shop will have any material needed and they will have done this a million times over. It's your life and it's worth spending a few dollars to protect it - a poorly installed cage is worse than no cage at all. If you don't think so try to imagine what might happen in an accident if one of those pipes breaks free and either cracks you in the head or spears you.... In my case it's going to cost me about $1200 or so for a cro-mo cage that will hit the rear wheel wells in at least two spots, the floor behind the seats, loop over the drivers head, go along the tops of the doors, drop to the floor on the front pillars, go across the windshield, and have sidebars dropping from just above shoulder height to somewhere down near my ankle but not so high as to make entry difficult. There may be a bar along the bottom door sill and possibly a cross bar between the side bar and that bar. My thoughts with regard to side protection is this - if I get stupid and slid into a tree I'd like to not die. If someone runs a light and spears the side of my car I'd like to survive. If something happens and the car ends up on it's side and I get speared I'd like a chance to live. If I'm rear ended I'd like a crumple zone behind me so I won't run tubing all the way back there, same with the front - the rear towers are already tied as are the front. Hopefully the fuel cell will hold up and I'm considering further protection for it as well when it's installed. If you've ever looked into the doors of an early 240Z you'll note that there is ZERO side impact protection. I've removed the window guts from my parts car and the door is light as a feather now - that's very little protection in an impact and I value my life. While my car might never see any real racing I'm trying to build it strong enough to pass tech simply because those tech rules exist for a reason and in some cases lives have been lost developing them. (shiver) Yeah, I'm a wet blanket but this is safety and maybe someone's life. I know everyone is probably thinking how they never intend to test a cage in an accident but then I don't know anyone that actually plans an accident anyway. A good chassis shop will know the rules and understand the engineering needed to protect the driver properly. My car will be a challenge but I trust the guys doing the work as they build entire cars out of pipe all the time. Find someone like that yourself, tell them what you want, and don't cut corners. God forbid that you ever have to test that cage but ask anyone who has had to test one and lived and you'll understand where I'm coming from. I've seen several cars in the chassis shop after having had "accidents" at the local circle track including T-bone hits - yikes! In each case the cage has held and the driver walked... P.S. No, I'm not going to do swing out bars I don't think. I considered this but most everyone I know that has them takes them out and then they don't do any good at all. My Mustang has a bolt-n cage and I wish it were welded. Thankfully it has impact protection from the factory. My Miata will get a HardDog bar when I'm feeling like I can work on yet another project. Convertibles make me nervous

Suggest you follow these links : http://www.dynojet.com/ldynocntr.shtml http://www.dynojet.com/maps/autodynos/ga.htm Dynojet is the name of the company that makes many of the chassis dynos that these shops use so.... Didn't take long to find it [This message has been edited by BLKMGK (edited July 07, 2000).]

Okay, I got some prices... $1750-$1800 for a SBC kit, no intercooler, for a carb not EFI. Add about $250-300 for the new oiless blower. At this present time no used blowers are hanging around the shop but several of the new oiless blowers went out the door today - these are selling like hotcakes. Someone was asking about a spring loaded idler. No concrete answer as they apparently vary the price depending on which kit it's being used for. Prices can range as high as $200+ for this. Apparently depending on the kit it will come with new blower brackets! Need to know exactly what's being used in order to best price this. As for the V6 blower. Well, ask ATI. Seriously, they know their blowers best. My opinion would be that either a P600 or one of the smaller D series would be fine. The CFM will be sized to the HP you wish to run anyway as no matter the engine it will take about the same amount of air to make a certain amount of HP (shrug). They may even have a kit just for that motor - worth asking about!

On it's way! I didn't do too much formatting, bolding, etc. but the text is all there and I don't think I skipped any steps. Pics aren't great but neither is my camera, I may yet have to buy another one for this kind of thing.... Enjoy guys!

I honestly don't recall the numbers but I think it was over 5lbs. I just recall being stunned becasue the same sort of throttle blip on my Paxton car used to do nothing but goto zero vaccum. As for the 351W - we'll see. I know the guy who specced the motor is reliable but 600+hp is a ton and I've never driven anything over say 450hp. It's actually been awhile since I've driven anything with more than 300hp so my first times driving it will be tenative at best. You don't just jump into that kind of power and expect to live - a fact I proved a couple of times letting friends drive the car with the turboes, it got hairy a few times (lol). I remember how the car used to pick up power as the weather got cooler. It wold go from fairly quick to downright scary when it got cold out. 3rd gear rolling I could fry the tires on cool evenings but not during the day usually. Never took that car past 10psi but still have the manifolds in the garage for a future project. BTW - just spotted a 5.0 article on the T56 in a Mustang. I'm almost wishing I'd gone Ford power with this car - almost. I could've had a 351W pretty easily and a blower real fast afterwards. I hope the Chevy motor runs as well as Keith Craft says it will - 450-600hp. I'm hoping this car won't beat the Mustang!

Well blast. I made a couple of updates and at least a post or two while out of town that aren't here (sigh). First - be aware ProCharger has a new blower that might be interesting - it's oiless! No hole in the oil pan - woohoo! Like the old Paxton it has to have it's lube changed occasionally but still that's cool. Now if th eblower dies or the motor dies metal from one doesn't mix with the other - this is a GOOD thing. I'll try to get prices in the next day or so - am now home. Am not sure any used blowers are lying around the shop but I'll ask. Rear gears - I went from 3.08 to 3.73. to 3.27 in my Mustang when it was turbocharged. 3.73s actually were too much and I'd bump the rev limiter in 4th going down the track! That sucker pulled 118mph no problem in the quarter - 3.27 gears were MUCH better. Not sure how a blower car will react but the turbo cars certainly liked having something to push against. The 3rd gear charge would pin you to the seat and really take off - it was awesome. Given a choice I like turbos better BTW

I second that. ArizonaZ did the same thing to me and I just happened to mention to the guy at Motorsport that I wished they had 'glas bumpers - and they did! I've got two in a box here now! Very nice, no nicks in them, smooth, and not twisted that I could see. I've not mounted them on anything yet but intend to down the road - very nice pieces. At the time they cost a little more than Arizona's but at least Motorsport was actually interested in selling them! I wonder if the guy at Arizona has any idea how many people talk about his poor service?

WTF?! Two threads I replied in while away have my posts zapped... Anyway, I measured out my core area on the Z and it's just about 24inches wide. Mike's using the Griffin 26X19 and while the 24 sounds like it might be a better fit that 24inches includes the tanks which won't cool much. I may gamble on Griffin not noticing the .5inch under 26 and order one of these. Is anyone using the 24 currently and if so how's it cool?

Okay guys - how do we go about submitting tech articles? I just spent a couple of hours witht he "Painless Wiring H4 headlight harness" converting my car Unfortunatly it seems I was a bit late as my headlight switch was flaking since the last time I drove the car and somehow I smoked a piece of the harness in the column Not to worry, it's an easy fix and the harness DOES work - no load on the headlight switch now except for the relays. I took pics, I've got tips, I'd like to write it up and get it posted here as I'm sure it'll help some folks out and maybe draw some traffic. Heh, and I'd like to get some credit too ;-P I won't spoil it but I will say that it's NOT nearly as "painless" to do this on the Z as it might be another car. The MADD harness written up in Car Craft this month might actually be a better one for the Z - I'll read their article to see. Bottom line is my headlights are much BRIGHTER, like WAY brighter, and I won't smoke my switch anymore once I repair it this last time... Hook me up guys - I'll start writing it up tomorrow evening after work. I'm no HTML whiz so some help would be nice in that dept. P.S. DOH! Can't edit my title (lol) [This message has been edited by BLKMGK (edited July 05, 2000).]

If you can only run a single exhaust make it a 3inch. You need only look as far as the SLP exhaust for the Camaros to see that on a stock 350 an upgrade is 3inch exhaust. My understanding is that a single 3inch flows better than 2 2.25 pipes but that dual 2.5's beat the 3. However due to fluid dynamics, friction on the pipe walls, and other stuff I barely understand I'm not positive the dual 2.5s beat a single 3. Bottom line - a single 2.5 is probably way too small if that motor is making much power. If you decide to go 3inch take a look at what the "roundy round" racers run. I spent some time at a friend's chassis shop the other day and he's found cheap OVAL tubing including adapters in some of the catalogs that cater exclusively to circle track racers. Unfortunatly I didn't get the name of the catalog. Oval tubing will get the pipes up further and give you ground clearance - he's using it in pro street cars that sit way low....

correct. Twin turbos are done so that you can have high airflow and fast spool time. Twin T25s on my 302 got me boost by about 1800RPMs and full boost (10lbs) by about 3-4K. Awesome! Twin superchargers HAVE been done in the past. I've seen it done with Vortechs and the result was a nightmare if you ask anyone involved with the project. Belt routing and issues with the crank pulley actually pulling the two superchargers inward tossing belts caused great havoc. The only reason to even consider two belt driven blowers is to move twice as much air and these days at least three companies make blowers that will move more air than you can use. Take a gander at the Paxton Novi, Vortech Mondo, and ATI D3 series. I actually know someone running a D3M (think that's it) and the gear drive on it is near deafening but it will make 20+lbs of boost on a 347 stroker Ford! That's with a box intake, good heads, and sheetmetal ATI intercooler. It's not tuned yet but it's up over 500hp and climbing - very scary. Put that kind of boost into a SBC and it'll make as much power I'm sure. Why would you want the hassles of two? Trust me, it's not needed....

For a non-synthetic I've always used the Castrol myself but in a motor I care about it's Mobil 1. I suppose if I had the money and easy access to product I'd use RedLine or Royal Purple. I've personally seen the detergent action in Mobil 1 clean the undersides of valve covers and intakes - impressive. No varnish afterwards, just clean! Since it sounds like low oil pressure is okay at idle what sort of pressure shoudl you set a warning light for? On this build I'm actually tempted to run one but don't want it going off all the time. On my old Vege Gt with a worn 350 I'd see oil pressure nearly at zero on hot days - that motor was in pretty bad shape And since we've got a Quaker State perosn on board I have to ask - any truth to the rumors that there was wax of some sort in that oil? I'd been warned to stay away from it years ago and was told that parafin was used for the multi-viscosity. Supposedly it wasn't too hot at lubricating but I never had any real evidence to back up those claims (shrug).

Need to find out from Mike how he mounted his and what chrome piece he's using - he can speak best for his own car As for the JTR piece - it's actually pretty nice! It's a metal strap with mounting tabs for the rubber and a stiffening rib welded top the bottom. No mounting holes though but I can handle that! Be awhile before I get to that point of my swap - waiting on the motor!

Am out of town and out of touch with my friend's back home right now. I won't be back until Thursday but will try to get prices on things ASAP when I get back. Head unit, tensioner, etc. etc.

My P1200 is on a 351W in an '88 Mustang. Car isn't currently done and is sitting in my friend's shop waiting for him to install the blower, tune it etc. By the time I got the motor done etc. I was getting pretty tired of working on it and wanted to do a Z so I turned the car over to him. I promptly filled it's parking space up at home and he's sort of been storing it waiting for me to tell him to finish it I think I'm about ready to do just that as all this talk about it and how much power it "should" make is driving me crazy! When I'm done with the Z nearly every car of mine in the driveway will have a cage in it (lol). As for the tensioner - if you've ever seen the tensioner on a serpentine belt in a Mustang you'd know what this looks like. Instead of a bolted down idler pulley holding the belt tension this is just a spring loaded version of it. I don't know that they're real cheap to be honest as I've forgotten what I had to pay. I'll look to see if any of the cars currently in the shop have one of these installed and take a pic for ya'. Mine's not on yet but maybe I'll take a pic of it too - the blower is mocked up on it's mount now I believe.