Forrest

Jon, thanks very much for sharing this. This is pretty darn useful information...I have actually seen a 2+2 260z, but never a 79 280zx 2+2 4spd. That seems like it's probably the rarest combo possible.

I have them on both cars, and I would have a very hard time giving them up. I don't find that they made the car any less streetable - wider tires make a much larger difference. On the other hand, I paid less than half what MSA is asking now. Dave's parts are nice, a friend of mine is using them, but they are race parts. If you're going to replace your hardened steel knuckles with aluminum knuckles, I hope you inspect them often.

There's an s30 in a movie I've never seen mentioned previously - Where The Truth Lies (2005) - I saw it drive by in the background for a half second - mismatched paint on the fender.

Sounds like a reason to get one. I'd say more but I think we have a "no politics" rule, so...

$2.03 exxon/chevron/shell $1.99 Circle K

"The Quaife can spin one tire in a straight burn-out... not what I want. " Excuse me? The quaife works well for drag racing. It is constantly biasing torque. From Quaife's website: "In drag-race style, straight-line acceleration runs, this results in a close to ideal 50/50 power split to both drive wheels, resulting in essentially twice the grip of an ordinary differential (they don't call open diffs "peglegs" for nothing)." From my personal experience, it has NEVER "spun one tire" during a launch. Whoever told you that probably doesn't own one. Sounds like sour grapes to me.

The Quaife is amazing. I could write you a couple pages on it, but it's going to sum up to "amazing." So there it is. I think it will cost you more than 1500$ but if you can in any way afford it, I would recommend it. I have never driven an S30 with a VLSD, just a 240sx, and only briefly, so I can't comment on a comparison. All I can say is that with the Quaife, I got every penny's worth. If I had to build another Z from scratch, it would be one of the first things I bought.

Glad you posted, I have thought about doing the same thing. What quantity did it take to do the engine bay? For the dissenters, just want to remind you that many people would say "if you want a v8 in a sports car, buy a vette, it doesn't belong in a Z" too. If it functions well, and you like it, awesome.

Pretty nice site. They have a journal! Hope they have lots of room for pics.

Check out this wheel: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/GRANT-Pilot-steering-wheel-13-75inch-3-spokes_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ33704QQihZ017QQitemZ270033132004QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW I think 5 other people in our local club are using them after checking mine out? We love them. Retail price is over 85$, as well, so that's a steal.

You have to know the history on this guy. No one asks him to come back, lie to us some more, get busted over again, lie about getting busted, apologize, promise never to lie again, promise never to post again, threaten people with violence, then come back and lie again. No one was that hard on him the first few times. This is probably the 300th thread similar to this that he has started. He just doesn't learn and definitely hasn't changed. No one there has any respect for him because he has not earned it. On the other hand, he has done plenty to earn his reputation as an idiot, and an e-thug. It's a shame that most of the old threads are gone now (site crash a few months ago) or I'd post a few choice examples. If you are really bored, you can look on H-T for some of the antics he's pulled there, but you'll have to figure out all his aliases. I have never ripped on him, but I couldn't help but post this one. Actions have consequences, and if you act like a tool to other people online, expect at the least that you'll get outed for it. Getting busted by your own girlfriend (or is it wife? who knows with him) for lying on "teh internets" is just a crying shame. Of course, we all know it won't stop him or even slow him down. He really has no shame. (or humility, spelling ability, common sense or common courtesy) I understand where you're coming from, but I doubt you'd feel that way if you had all the information. I can't feel sorry for him at this point.

That guy just never learns. He wasn't even telling the truth about being married...then he's like "well, we're almost married." Looks like they're about to be "almost divorced."

Whew, I am crying laughing at this. This is from a local forum. A little backstory: this guy is a local legend, but not in a good way. It's hard to even remember all the priceless entertainment he has provided. This guy fits the "ricer cliche" so much that several times I've suspected it was all a big joke. But people who've met him in person assure me that he is indeed "the real McCoy". He has an Integra with a " JDM engine swap" but doesn't even have his facts straight enough to lie well about it. The car runs 15's (been caught on video at the track getting skunked.) He's always talking about what a great "tuner" he is, he goes out and street races all the time, and loses most of them, then re-writes history, and always claims the car was "out of tune" at the time. He's advertised his services "tuning" other people's honda's on H-T and has been busted on what a joke that is. He's been caught faking dyno sheets, has confessed to it, and still comes back to post more lies later! I'd have to say, until this post, the best was when many of the members of the forum pitched in to pay for dyno time to see what his car ran. He must be deluded, as he actually went through with it, but of course he claimed the "dyno was wrong" when it showed him making 151whp, less than some stock GSR's. Just for reference, several new stock cars dyno'd the same day and made within 1-2hp of their magazine published whp numbers. Still, even with such a colorful past, this post takes the cake. The payoff is on the 3rd page if you're impatient. http://www.sportsnimports.com/board/showthread.php?t=2468 My sides are still literally hurting from laughing so hard.

I thought the short was cool, if too short. Can't wait for them to make a full length. Everyone who's close to Los Angeles, go and make this a Z experience!

If you guys want to "stick it to the man" by buying less gas, just ride a motorcycle. 55mpg in town on my 600cc cruiser, and a friend of mine gets 85mpg on his 250cc. Just don't get run over.

"You can never go fast enough." -James Taylor as The Driver

Yeah, those prices are not just high, they are insane. I would not pay more than 600$ for a running longblock that you've done a leakdown on, + T5, ecu, harness, everything, pulled and loaded for you. Those guys are delusional.

I can't find them...what is one of the picture names?

That's stock.

Hahahahaha! Not arguing that. I'm an organ donor, too. Joel, is your engine bay painted yet? I don't think I will be taking long trips on this thing, it's an in-town bike, and I've been told it's pretty rough on the interstate for more than a few minutes. But I'm still up for taking a day off to put the RB back in! As for the bike its a 1996 Honda Shadow 600cc VLX. I think the Shadow is supposed to be a Harley look-alike. A lot cheaper, though!

Oh man, I've heard a lot of them. When I first told one of my coworkers I was going to buy it she said "you know, one of my friends is in a coma in intensive care right now because someone hit him oncoming 2 days ago, and it took 5 hours for someone to see him in the ditch. He was in surgery for 12 hours running." Oh well, what can I say. I've always wanted one and I don't want to look back at my life and regret never doing anything I wanted just because there was risk involved. I will be careful, I've read about 100 different articles on motorcycle safety and thousands of posts over at hondashadow.net. I will do my best to take it easy and stay alert.

Not sure how long I'll survive now that I have one of these! No, you can't have any of my Z stuff if I die - I don't need to motivate any assassins out there.

I have 21k in my car, 3.5k in parts still on the shelf, and a long way to go. I have a spreadsheet of all the little things, and yes, they definitely add up. It's always ming boggling to look at it, because only a few major expenses stand out. I didn't post in your thread because I don't have a v8 swap. However, most of my money was not spent on the engine. I'm pretty happy with most of the purchases too, many of them were pretty good deals. Anyway, obviously what you spends depends on what you want. But I would budget at least twice what you think you will spend, if you can afford to. This stuff sneaks up on you.

Ballistic gelatin?

It shoots like a dream! I have actually only gotten to shoot it one time (all day of course.) I have to drive to my friend's brother's farm, he is the only place even remotely close with enough distance to shoot it. It's hard to get together with all of our schedules so I can't make it out there often. He does have a nice 1200yd stretch, though. I was shocked by the fact that there is basically no recoil. The thing comes with a package of Tylenol, but that's obviously just a joke - it's only loud, not painful. The gas from the muzzle brake did knock over a bunch of plywood 10 feet away the first time I shot it...you have to be careful not to stand in the path of that. I had been told by all the shooters I hung out with that it would feel like a .30-06 - well, that may be true for a Barrett. The Armalite just pushes on your shoulder a little - it's slow and you don't have to even hold it tightly. Less snap than a .22lr! I assume you were asking about accuracy, and I have to be honest, we were having so much fun that day we didn't do much real precision shooting. It's too much of a pain to get all the way down there are change paper! We sighted it in at 100yds and it drills! After a few shots Mike (who has some very nice rifles built to take advantage of his full range) was putting every round in the exact same hole. After that we shot at 55gallon drums of water (awesome!!!) and hanging metal plates (until they fell off the post) and a 6.5' painted metal slihouette. That was great too, because the orange paint would get burned off by the incindiary rounds and make a big cloud of orange smoke. We weren't really paying close attention to how close the groups were, but let me put it like this - it was rare anyone ever missed the targets, and they were 900 yards away. And although I doubt the gun is truly this precise, I have to tell this story anyway. We'd been shooting for a couple of hours and Mike's friend said that he couldn't get down on the ground because of recent hip surgery. He and Mike both shoot daily on the 1200yd range, and they are far better shots than I'll ever be. You could tell he was dying to shoot it though, and at the end of the day he just couldn't stand it any more. We had just resprayed the target with paint, and he got down and took 3 shots. When we saw the group we were all pretty surprised - all 3 rounds were within 3.5" each other. This is with bulk reloaded Lake City brass with military surplus projectiles. I'm definitely going out there this fall when it cools down, and although I seriously doubt I could ever reproduce that kind of grouping, I will try and get an idea of what kind of groups I can manage with these reloads instead of just blowing stuff up (although there is a lot to be said for that too.) I haven't shot enough to justify a new press for .50bmg so I will use that as an excuse too. Other than having to a lug around a 40-something pound rifle, it's really easy on me - I can shoot it all day (unlike my 7mm mag.)