tube80z

My car was 1850 with 5 gallons of fuel in the cell and had an easy 100 pounds that I could have removed. I had to run that much fuel as the cell wasn't installed properly and it would have fuel starvation. I dropped a bunch of weight from the front hubs/brakes when I redid them to lose much lighter Wilwood calipers. Someone had spent hours grinding the 4-piston Toyotas down to the size of a Wilwood Dynalites. Hubs were steel and couldn't have been changed to Aluminum. Car had a steel driveshaft, R200 diff, and all the stock crossmembers. I had a super-heavy Optima deep cell battery (65 pounds) because I had alternator problems until I switched to a modern Kubota tractor version. All in all I thought there was an easy 100 pounds of weight I could have removed getting the car into the 1750 range. I've seen other Z's that low so mine isn't an outlier, just not a normal compared to most. Wheels, tires, brakes, clutch/flywheels, transmissions, subframe braces, all are hidden weight that really adds up. Even too much MIG welding. I started to look more and more at modern panel bond techniques as a way to save weight. Riveting brackets that didn't need to be unbolted, etc.

My guess is that the spammers are using ChatGPT or something similar to make comments. As long as the profile looks reasonable and the posts don't look too odd for the forum I've been letting them slide. I think this is only going to get more difficult in the future and will need some kind of tool to upfront check to verify that someone isn't a bot or spammer. Cary

Dan would have to answer but we're missing the spam plugin. It appears this software has a license fee that isn't trivial that Dan has been paying. I'm not sure how much the spam plugin costs but there may be other reasons it stopped working I don't know about.

Also removed. I try to make sure I check the site a couple of times a day but it doesn't always work out that way. I appreciate the extra help in getting rid of these.

These are all flagged as spammers.

The main reason was weight. Moving to 15 inch wheels in the combo I was using added almost a hundred pounds to the car. This was an autox/hillclimb car and not a road racer. I wouldn't have used 13s on those.

If you like I can add these as an FAQ. I'm going to link to these for now from your other message. Cary

Thanks NewZed. Those and a bunch of others have been flagged as spammers. I've also removed from bot posts and topics from the forums. I've been away for a few days and unable to do my daily patrolling. We seem to have a lot more spam activity lately and it will take the village to fight them. Thanks for all the help, Cary

Hi JHM, I'm not sure why you are seeing this. When I look I see an updated certificate. The only issue I think might be an issue is if your browser doesn't consider Kaspersky to be a safe certificate authority. What do you see for the certificate details? Thanks, Cary

I sent Dan a DM to look into this. I don't have access to these functions. Sorry, I'm not more help. Cary

All in on sounds easy from the office chair I don't think I'd make a spacer myself but just move the entire plate over and weld up the old holes. That way you can still check on things easily and, if needed, doe some basic adjusting. And since you are rebuilding think about making an end stop that would allow you to easily measure or drop spacers for pre-aligned camber.

You can weld to it fine. Greg most likely was worried about distortion. What I found when doing my brakes (remember 13 inch wheels) is that the original ears the caliper bolted to will interfere with the new caliper as you try and bolt it up. So you need to remove some section of these in order for everything to align. As Clarke mentioned this is some really tough steel. I milled one side of the bracket and it took a few days of working on it in the evenings and ruined a couple of cutters. Next side was sliced off using a fire axe (cutting torch) and then ground smooth. New bracket was welded to the old base.

The 0.120 DOM is going to be stronger than the the rest of the components you are bolting into. If you every get a large lateral hit (curb/pothole) what is the fuse that will blow? I'm not sure how you are welding studs to the strut but I'd personally weld on brackets that allow me to bolt to the strut using a much smaller (shorter and smaller diameter) bolt that is in the same orientation as the strut tube. These can the connect to a monoball or the rod end as needed. Another variation is to weld the monoball cup to the strut tube and use a clevis on the control arm to bolt to the strut.

These accounts have all been flagged as spammers and I have removed the posts that were made. I allowed one to stay that was indicated as a bot but have sent them an email asking them to respond on why they are not a bot and should be banned. Thanks for all the help everyone, Cary

I have been very aggressive at banning accounts and hiding posts/threads from spammers. It's possible this is related to me but when I look at the post I don't see the info mentioned. Another mod may have already deleted it. Thanks for reporting, I can't get them all. Cary