drmiller100

i ran 225x50x15's with 7 inch wheels. front never hit, rear would hit on big bumps so I rolled the fenders a little. I could have ran the same tires on 8.5 inch wide wheels. The clearance issue was with the strut and fender at the tread. going to a homemade coil over and hoping for 245x50x15 tires on 9 inch wheels in the rear under stock fenders. might be dreaming though.

bleed it the old fashioned way with two guys to at least make sure your master cylinder is pumping fluid. if the master cylinder is pumping fluid, then bleeding it again won't help.

normally windshield seals in bottom corners

the 74 was built 1/74, small bumpers, front turn signal below bumper. the 71 was late enough to have big rear quarter emblems, but vertical rear defroster lines. both cars are currently stripped down to bare metal. let me know what pics you want and i'll take them. 74 is getting put together, 71 is getting crushed.

jeesh, you guys make it complicated. you can bolt auto vs clutch master cylinder back and forth. There is no difference in the car itself, only the parts that come with the car. I'm swapping a stick 260 to an auto, and it takes about an hour to swap the pedal assembly if you are old, fat, and lazy like me. You will spend a LOT more time fixing rust or crummy body. All the diffs bolt in place back and forth, and the r200 with the 400 dollar OBX has been run to 500 horsepower or something stupid high. The viscous lsd's are junk IMO. stock brakes suck. coil over kits are stupid high priced for what you get, so make your own. Look up my tater build.

start the car. pump the brake pedal fairly steadily. Do they pump up, and does the brake pedal get higher? if so, it is either air or the rear brake shoes need tightened up. Pull the emergency brake. Now does the pedal get higher? If so, it is either air or rear shoes need adjusted. Once the pedal is up fairly high, hold the pedal pretty hard. If it slowly sinks, and no fluid on the ground, master cylinder is shot. If pedal will not pump up, it is something in the linkage between pedal and master cylinder. To confirm, open the tops of the brake fluid reservoirs. have a buddy slowly push the pedal down. normally, there will some circulation in the reservoirs as you first start to push the pedal down, then it will quit.

I have a 1970 I am swapping the V8, suspension, and brakes over to a an early 74. fuse panel moved, heavy bumpers, door side impact bars, air conditioning provisions, different wiring, different seat belt system. years ago i read somewhere 260's moved from early 240 stuff to 280 stuff as parts ran out. So to say 260's had "xyz" is incorrect other then the list above. Many non california 73 240's had the good carbs. FWIW, my 260 was 2300 pounds dry with AC which is pretty light.

I have the identical welder, except older, and been used a bunch. You got a GREAT deal. The good news is it will run a spool gun really well. The not so good news is the spool gun will be really expensive. I bought the wrong spool gun off ebay. If you want it, I will sell it to you what I paid - 400 bucks US, and will guarantee it will not work on your welder. The gun you must have has the same number of pins (10 or something????) on the half twist plug on the front of your welder. They are spendy.

Hey Grumpy, Thank you. I'll get busy and order that intake manifold. The guy who did the heads put valve springs in it for a big torque cam,and he said they are fine for .575 lift. I don't know squat about cams, but while waiting for you to get back to me, I was looking at this cam. XM270H COMP CAMS 11-236-4 CHEVY 396-454 XTREME MARINE XM270H CAM, Camshaft, Hydraulic Flat Tappet, Advertised Duration 270/286, Lift .544/.547, Chevy, Big Block, Chevy 396-454 I'm going to be hurting on the exhaust as I have to run marine exhaust, which I am told really suck. Thanks again for your advice, Doug

don't mean to be nosy, but does the engine actually miss? I've heard leaky exhausts that come and go. I've also seen plug wires come and go, especially with changes in humidity. sometimes lifters will leak down when engine is off, but pump right up on start up. Rhoades lifters were famous for this.

A few thoughts. When you start discussing power induced Yaw, you should really first decide if you are excluding live axles, and only talking IRS. Was the original article written by someone ignoring live axles????? The comments about caster and differentials I think applied to vehicles with less then an inch of compression travel such as Formula Atlantic and even stiffer purpose built race cars. Are there Z's running less then an 1.5 inches of total suspension travel? On the OBX thread, there is an EXCELLENT picture and description of how Quaiffe works. Pretty cool. Ultimately fast run times come down to grip. The most important grip is acceleration out of a corner, which is why folks run LSD's. At corner entry, it would be nice if the rear tires were free to spin at different rates in order to maximize grip and allow the car to "turn in", rotate, or "yaw". If the rear tires are locked, the car is either pushing or sacrificing maximum grip as the rear tires are fighting each other harder then they need to. If you late apex (as all good autocrossers should), you enter the corner, brake hard, lift on the brakes and turn the steering wheel until the car is about pointed the right direction, then light it off. In this case, the rear tires losing some controlled grip to allow the car to rotate is not the end of the world. But, if you set the car loose enough on entry for these corners, the car gets REALLY exciting in the slaloms, and probably won't corner exit very well. When I was campaigning my V8z in autocross, LSD's were REALLY expensive, so I ran an open diff. I set the suspension for corner exit. Huge front sway bar, really stiff front springs, little rear sway bar, and really soft rear springs. The car pushed like a pig on entry though, so I kept cranking rear brake bias into it until it got really loose. Then I learned to left book brake. Then I learned to trail brake. Then I learned to trail brake, turn in slightly, let the rear brakes loosen the rear of the car up and rotate the car, then power to set the rear end, then roll off the brakes, and power on out of the corner. With an LSD I plan to make the car actually handle. One interesting bit of trivia: only the spool, detroit locker, and cam/pawl can guarantee 100 percent torque application on corner exit, regardless of whether the inside tire is on the ground. Of those 3, only Cam/Pawl free wheels on entry and mid corner.

old school answer is to buy 8 feet of 1/8 or so plastic wrapped cable from local hardware store, and 2 clamps. Wrap the cables under the front cross member, then up and over the top of the differential. Pull it tight with a claw hammer, and tighten it up. You can use a shot front diff mount with this solution.

454 question. I bought it from an ex buddy. very long story, not what was advertised, and I am trying to be cheap. I am all fired up to run it in a big river boat, so it needs to make decent power at 3200 rpm through like 4500 to 5000. I can set the jet pump to limit RPM wherever, but the lower the better. I have an edelbrock dual plane manifold with 1 inch carb spacer under the big block q-jet carb. It has peanut port heads I had pocket ported by a guy who really knows what he is doing. The pistons are Keith Black cheapies, but clearance is pretty bad, so I will bore it and buy new pistons. So, I'm looking for suggestions for a Cam (hydraulic flat tappet) and pistons. Kb's??? Flat tops? Goal of 9:1 to run on regular gas??? can't afford thousands of gallons of premium gas. A goal would be over 400 horsepower at 4500 rpm, but that might not be realistic. Thank you!!!

Yup, I'm in Idaho. Found a super rust free, really straight early 260z. 86k original miles, with blown up engine, and the original 260 carbs. If anyone wants a great deal on any of the stock running gear, drop me a line...... 15 years ago I built a 71 into a JTR. 350 with RV cam, alum intake, q jet, turbo 350 trans. koni's up front, ugly ugly car, but pretty quick for an autocross. Sold it to a buddy, and he totalled it 2 days later on a hillclimb. Then it sat for 6 years. Combine the two cars, and that is my build. Weighed the 260 at 2305 pounds, pretty much bone dry of every fluid, missing drivers glass, but otherwise road ready. Surprised me as I expected it to be heavier then that. Pulled the 260 engine, weighed it at 580 pounds. this is with an AC compressor hanging off the side, and a 1 foot piece of exhaust pipe below the manifold. The 71 had full suspension bushings under it, so I am going to salvage that stuff. I plan to section the strut tubes, and really slam the car down. Also convert to coil overs, and steal the zx rear brakes and toyota front calipers. I think the 15x7 wheels survived ok, so will probably use those. Any suggestions on what springs to start with? Goal is somewhat streetable for very short hauls, and a lot of autox/track. 300 front/250 back????? Thinking hard of lexan rear hatch. For sure going to yard the bumpers off and add front air dam. paint it white/blue, and sell the car. 7500 bucks???

interesting reading. My experience is the carbs need the RIGHT pressure, not just steady pressure. too much pressure is bad. Not enough flow is bad. Personally I don't like the returns, but I understand the theory behind them. I like too much pressure at the tank, restricted down to the RIGHT pressure with a high flow regulator. But I'm also partial to Q-Jets, which are pretty sensitive for fuel pressure and adequate flow.

front shocks being too stiff makes sense to me. You might (should???) read about late apex. Then you should work on getting close to the inside cones. Between these two issues, by definition you will be late coming off corners. If it were mine, I would put stiffer springs on the front of the car. Stiffer springs will do a lot of interesting things. It will reduce body roll. It will let you power out of corners a LOT better. It will plant the inside rear corner. It will speed up your turn in. I also can't tell how good your brakes are. If you late apex, you will focus more on braking straight. just thoughts.....

the only think i could get to work right is a good fuel pump, with the holley high volume pressure regulator. as i recall, the regulator was 50 bucks by itself, but the engine didn't run out of gas either.

stock is a funny thing. i bought a crate motor for like 1200 bucks. the cheapy keith black pistons, RV cam, junk stock heads, chrome oil pan and valve covers, quadrajet carb. it ran a 14.0 at 103 mph. to be fair, she was lighter then most at something like 2200 pounds wet.