Jon 74 260Z

For what it's worth (because I am aware that you're not seeking anyone's approval in your decision to sell it), I think you're making the right choice. Years ago, I bought an expensive sports car and I started doing time trials with it. (Well, the car was very expensive to me; to others, it was a drop in the bucket...) After a couple of years, I bought a "cheap" Spec Racer and I had an absolute blast with it! It got to the point that I didn't enjoy tracking my sports car and in fact, during my last competition, I was downright miserable (even tho I won). I kept thinking, "If I wad this into a wall during my last race, I am going to have deep psychological scars for the rest of my life..." The lesson I learned was that to enjoy a track car, you cannot be emotionally attached to it. In fact, I entered that Spec Racer in endurance races and recruited friends to be my co-drivers. In a few races, they had serious contact resulting in DNF's -- we nicknamed the Spec Racer the "BMW magnet" because it always seemed to be rookie BMW racers who knocked us out. The point is that I could laugh and joke about it with them and I still enjoyed the weekend. Then I compare that to the weekend I got a rock chip in my "nice" car and how depressed I was (even tho the insurance company paid out to fix it). I wish you the best of luck for success in your new business venture and with the sale of your Z. And I hope to see you at the track soon.

Thanks for posting the vids -- they were great to watch. Not ever having been to the salt, this may be a dumb question BUT... How did those support vehicles know when and where you were going to spin? I mean, it's like they appear out of nowhere! They show up less than ten seconds after you drop the F-bomb when your spin is over. It's uncanny....

What's been missed so far is the biggest problem with HOA's: The only people who WANT to be president of the HOA are the exact people who you DON'T want to be involved in any position of responsibility or power. Think of the nerdy, butt-puckering Hall Monitors from grade school. Where do you think they are now? (They're HOA prez's, I tell ya!) That type of personality defect never cures itself -- it needs to find an outlet and thus, HOA's were created. Oh, and that was an interesting analysis of the ROI on HOA fees. Personally, I think it's actually worse than that because I don't believe that HOA do anything to "keep property values up."

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You do realize you're on the internet, right? There's probably a lot of wankers here who believe they've solved unification theory...

I can figure out the 1-to-5 scale... ... but the different elephant lines for the elephant have got me confused.

Yes. Although, IIRC, you can get heated air to the defrosters with no vacuum lines... Connect the appropriate vacuum lines and report back. It's easier to get to the connections by removing the center console then it is from removing the ac/heater control console -- the connections are about 2" above the transmission tunnel "hump" behind the back of the radio. Note: The FSM actually does a good job describing where you should have hot, cold or fresh air depending on the positions of the control panel switches. Best of luck...

Calculating the cost per unit time is the only known cure for racing... ... but track days are waaaaaay cheaper than citations.

I was thinking the exact same thing that Phar wrote... Having zero experience registering cars in Poland, I would still advise you to talk to someone else who has gone through the process. I would thnk that they would be able to tell you if the inspection is detailed and thorough enough to know what is original and what isn't.

I did a similar build with my 260. If you're now running a stock L26, you'll notice a big change and be happy with the results... for a while. There is always someone with a faster car.

I see that the driver used the "I was avoiding a low-flying pelican" excuse... ... which is almost as believable as the "the throttle cable got stuck" line.

My 74 was PNO'ed during the time it went smog exempt. Registered it a couple of years later without any problems (or smog checks). Note: The last registration date will still be in effect. iow, if your registration was due in Nov and you take it in next week, you will have to pay a full year's fee AND pay for another year in November. They don't prorate the annual fees nor do they "reset" the registration date when a car has been PNO'ed. BUT, the DMV's website (or a phone call to them) will give you more accurate info then internet opinions...

So if I've got this straight: I could theoretically measure the hp difference of a lighter driveshaft on an inertia dyno to quantify the effect... but there would be a 4.5% margin of error in the results. There is one opinion that says the trans is lossier than the diff (which is the opposite of what I would have guessed). And there is a semantic difference about whether or not "driveline losses" includes "inertial losses." That about sum it up?

As one of my profs was fond of telling me, "There's no charge for reading the text."

An insomnia-induced question for you guys: Anybody know the relative contributions of the different components to the driveline losses? There's been discussion ad nauseum about total losses, particularly with respect to chassis and engine dyno numbers... and I don't wanna go there. I'm asking if we assume a 17% total driveline loss (pick a percentage if you don't like seventeen), what can reasonably be expected to be attributed to the diff, or the tranny, or the rotational losses of the driveshaft, or whatever? The discussions I've seen that relate to diffs or transmissions say that if one is "better" than another, it's most often because it is more robust (ie, it "can handle the power"). But I haven't heard the comment that says "I like X-brand diffs because it transmits power with 93% efficiency versus Y-brand at 90.5% efficiency." Similarly, is there any data that quantifies what those mega-dollar CF driveshafts actually do? Is this info out there and I just missed it?? TIA -- Jon

Nice read, Tony. The one thing that a youngun should parse from that post is that you should always be seeking to expand your knowledge base. I had a prof who once said, "Imagine if you learned one new thing a day -- it wouldn't take you very long to be really smart..." And probably the most efficient way to do that is to read. My favorite William F Buckley quote is "Always carry a book with you; you spend half your life waiting." (Like his politics or not, that advice is money.) TonyD gets off an intercontinental flight smarter than when he boarded while a beer heiress chugs wine, gets felt up and gets arrested upon landing. Who do you think is going to write more interesting posts on HybridZ? Also consistent with Tony's post is one of Jon 74 260Z's Truths of Life: Where you went to school and for how long only matters for your first job; after that, it's what you do on the job that counts. (I may be impressed with a PhD from MIT if you're fresh out of school but if you already worked somewhere, that degree is irrelevant -- I'm only concerned with what you did to justify your salary.) My $0.02 to the OP is a bit long-winded: I enjoy working on my Z because I generally have another car to get me to work. On those thankfully rare occasions when all of my stable is off-line, working on cars, even the most simple jobs, absolutely SUCKS! It's the difference between a want-to and a have-to... Are you going to enjoy working on cars when it is your job? (There is a reason why it is called "going to work" and not "going to play.") There are some people in this world who enjoy doing at home what they do at work -- I'm not one of them. I do like my job but it is NOT what I want to do when I'm not at work. I want something different and wrenching on cars provides a good balance for me... It all depends on your particular psychology. Similar to The Pretender: "I'm not a tuner... but I play one in my garage!"

Uhhhh...., that reminds me: All of my cars are completely street-legal and pass smog. I always obey all traffic laws and never exceed the posted speed limit. Any modifications done to my vehicles are solely for safety and fuel economy reasons and are not performance enhancements. Whew -- glad I got that on the record! Oh yeah, one more thing: I report all my income to the IRS too....

Seeing those clothes on your dog makes me wonder why people are surprised when dogs turn on their owners.

Sounds like an advertisement for one those companies that offer mail-order brides... But glad to hear you're having a good time. Please tell us you weren't at the Millwall v West Ham match.

I'm not a "local" but I did live there for a couple of years in my not-too-distant past -- be happy to share my twopence on things to do/see if you let me know where you're gonna be at. FWIW, everyone warned me about the food but I didn't think it was bad. It did take a while to get used to having a late-night/early-morning kebab instead of a burrito tho...

Errrrr....., I'm not sure if this is true. A couple of years back, I knew that Porsche was actually making their rotors with the cross-"drilled" holes in them and not actually drilling the holes. (I hate to throw "anecdotal evidence" into the mix but I know a few racers who believe that drilling the rotors severely impacts the metallurgy and causes cracking to occur more easily. ie, the cooling benefits of cross-drilling did not make up for the weakened metallurgy. But since I'm not a metallurgist, I'm easily persuaded by convincing-sounding arguments...)

Maybe, just maybe, the employment prospects for your line of work should be a factor in making a decision on where to live. There is something about being gainfully employed that has a positive effect on one's quality of life... more than tight S curves and low bimbo population percentages.

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned improper usage of "there" and "their." Drives me nuts. Oh yeah, the wrong apostrophe in "it's" is another one. I am very guilty of using multiple question marks and ellipsis but... I look at it this way: It's like swearing. If it's over-used, it indicates a lack of vocabulary (or knowledge of grammar) but if used appropriately, it can provide emphasis.

I'm afraid to ask when the last time that postage scale was calibrated to within 6.875 grams... I think the answer falls into the TMI category. (thx for the info tho)

Does anyone have data on this? (I'm not disputing it because I haven't come across the post where johnc gave wrong info but I'm wondering if anybody has put these parts on a scale...) And another thing my insomniac mind was pondering a while ago: Assume that caliper + rotor is of equal weight drum + shoes; if the rotor weighed less than the drum, wouldn't it have a performance advantage due to less rotational mass? All I know for certain is that when I did my rear disc conversion, I felt really good about removing weight when I took off the big, heavy drums. I felt less good when I hefted the rotors in place and then when I grabbed the caliper... Well, let's just say that because I wanted the whole setup to be lighter, I decided that it was. I didn't need an objective scale to confirm what my wishful thinking had already determined as fact. Denial is a wonderful thing.