tube80z

The nascar takeoff trannys will run you in the 2500 range and you need a bellhousing. You can do all manner of things with the gears including overdrive in case you think you're stuck to 1:1 for fourth. You can add a cheap low ground clearance bellhousing usually for around 200 and a tri-lite style throw out bearing for around 150. Reverse rotation starter is around 100. Then a 3 disk 7.25 clutch, which you can convert to a 2-disk rally style for a little more slip (if needed). All said that's probably 40 to 50 pounds less than the T-56 but you're looking at around $3K. For the T-56 you can have it faceplated, which is the same thing as dog ring engagement. I think they are around 1K for 1 to 4 and leave 5th and 6th with synchro for street drive. Dog engagement can be shifted as fast as you can move the lever and only takes a small breathe off the gas to reduce torque. There are some fancy bits that can be added for no-lift-shift using a load cell shifter and interface box. That's double the cost of the gearbox mods. You can also do the mutli-diks behind the T-56 using a flexplate for ring gear, button flywheel, and clutch. I think Ron Tyler found it was 38 pounds less weight than the Corvette flywheel and clutch combo. Unless you plan to go all out and want to dry sump the motor and lower it I'd probably lean more towards face plating what you have. Cary

Thanks Tony, I will keep on the lookout for a GEO system. Cary

Here's an option for 6-speed sequential transaxle, http://www.ebay.com/itm/GEMINI-CRAWFORD-6-SPEED-SEQUENTIAL-/131151078525?forcerrptr=true&hash=item1e8936a47d&item=131151078525&pt=Race_Cars_Not_Street_Legal That would get a little more weight to the rear. Any reason you didn't go for a Jerico tranny and save some weight? I have the similar C&R tranny and it's 87 pounds with integrated oil pump. I'm not sure what ECU you are using but Lingenfelter makes a box that works with the stock ECU that allows for no lift shifting controlled via a load cell shift knob. Very similar times to a fully sequential setup. V8 supercars used to run similar with their cars before they went sequential. They used all Motec electronics. Here's the link in case you haven't seen it, http://www.lingenfelter.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=LPE&Product_Code=L460135297&Category_Code=C163#.UzTNFPldXkU and a video of it in action, https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1878619807148. I haven't looked to see if they support aftermarket ECUs but they might. Looks like it's coming along nicely. Cary

I could think of many reasons, can't you?

I went and poked around some GEO forums and it seems they don't think they work that well. So those may not be the best choice either. Cary

With that design yes. But you can also use a slightly larger bushing that allows you to have left right threads in the same piece. Generally this isn't a good place to make camber adjustments at as you also change the toe settings a lot. Check out bung adjuster nuts at midwest control. https://www.midwestcontrol.com/series.php?id=194 Cary

We have a thread for a puller loaner Works much better than the hammer.

Maybe someday. I would love to be able to do the left coast hills.

RIchard, From my research the selig is a good single profile wing but isn't very good when you add another element. I think you'd be better off look at the Eppler 423 with a NACA 4412 element. This was close to the profile Jon showed me on Mcbeath's wing as I remember. The other option is to take a look at a program called Xfoil. In this you can pressure plot the element and see what it looks like. A good main element will have a pressure plot that drops towards the back of the wing and the second element is used to recover this pressure. On the Selig it still has a lot of pressure at the rear. Cary

I've ran this on a number of race cars. They get a lot of maintenance but never seen a problem. For a street car the stock spindle pin is safer but if you use the lock I think you'd get most of the safety. Cary

Here's a thread that may help, http://clubroadster.net/vb_forum/89-roadster-projects/44470-my-na-becomes-track-car-build-thread.html. It details what this guy did to his miata (all simple DIY stuff) and how much his laptimes dropped from it. When you finish you'll want to be a cool kid too Cary

Oddly the ride isn't that bad when the shocks are right. For a unibody car I would think around 1:1 is about all you would want. With a stiffer chassis then you could look at the higher numbers. For shocks I now have Penskes but I keep hearing people claim in autox circles that Koni 8611s will take springs up to a 1000 lbs-in I have no experience to say one way or the other with the Konis. The ADs I previously ran worked at 800 lbs-in. The fastest setup I had was digressive front and linear rear. Unfortunately ground Control never gave my a dyno sheet with the shocks on any of the rebuilds. They claimed they were set from my measured numbers.

I was looking at the head on shot. I was wondering if you were going to use a structural skid plate to tie all the suspension together and protect the dry sump plumbing? I'm doing that on my car, which has some similar changes happening. Gotta love how easy it is to get the new parts. BTW, have you checked out any of the ceramic bearings for the hubs? They are in the hundred dollar range but have a let less deflection and friction under load.

Yes is the short answer. The assumption is that you are looking at wheel rate when you make the change.

This would be a good start, http://nissanroadracing.com/showthread.php?p=65055&highlight=eppler+wing#post65055 Also take a look at the Selig 1223, it seems a number of people use that too.

What exactly are you looking for? I have all the parts no my bench that I've been measuring but I didn't do any of this yet. I can do that tomorrow if I have a better idea what you're looking for. Cary

This was an autox and hillclimb car. It had a 8 point cage, belts, window net, and 5 lbs. fire extinguisher.

I've never ran higher than 1.3 myself (725 lbs/in). But that was on a really bumpy hill and I was amazed at how stable the car felt. But you can see the trend as you start to look at adding underbody downforce. It does require a really good shock to pull it off. The bilsteins you have didn't work for us once past 400 lbs/in springs.

One-piece nose, full doors, and rear hatch were all FG on the car. The rest of weight was lighter components. Rear diff changed from an R200 to an alloy Ford 8.8, steel driveshaft changed to an aluminum one. And so on and so on. I helped a friend put together another 71 240Z that was 1840. It used many of the same parts but had a Rebello KA24 and an R180 rear end. Very fast but very peaky. Quite a few of my friends are laughing at me when I told them I'm going to have a sub 1900 lbs. LS powered autox car. Cary

That was the complete engine.

Not trying to derail this thread but a number of us in the NW were running around 3 hz with the front 5 to 10% higher. What was odd to me was that as we started to develop setups that were mostly spring and little to no bar we didn't need to change much with grip changes. When we ran more bar and a lot softer in the springs we'd have to chase the track. And when it was cold or wet the bars had to come off and often the car wasn't very much fun to drive. I got this chart from Eric Purcell a number of years back. When I first heard about it I thought people were smoking something. But having tried this it's worked very well for me. Spring rate based on corner weight. Sedans and radial DOT tires -- .5 to .7 Production and light GT cars -- .8 to 1 Medium weight, 200 to 300 HP cars GT cars -- 1 to 1.3 (FP) Heavy high HP GT cars -- 1.3 to 2 (XP/EM) Hope this helps, Cary

1970 240Z, SUs, light flywheel (weighed 369 lbs.), 4-speed, R200, full cage. No interior, 25 lbs. battery, very light wheels/tires/brakes (13 inch). 0.125" lexan windshield, FG door skin, one-piece FG nose Weight with 3 gallons of gas was 1850. I had probably another 100 to 125 lbs. that could have been removed. Keep in mind this is an autox car and not a track car. It's very easy to add weight in wheels, tires, and brakes. Changing to 15 inch wheels and tires added 75 lbs. Cary

I think more than anything it's the rear percentage. On my FP autox car it was faster with ballast than without. I tried changing springs, played with shocks, etc. to compensate and it didn't seem to change much on putting power down. When I took Rouelle's seminar I asked this question. The short version he gave was that you need rear percentage to help put power down. He also reiterated that the tire has a traction allowance. If you use all of it for lateral traction you have none for longitudinal. So setting a car up if you can get the front to take more roll resistance you can free up some for the rear. You can do this a number of ways but for me I found lowering the end of the car not working was better than changing springs or bars. The downside is if you go too far the you lose turn in. Taking this to the extreme of the EM monsters. A friends LS2 powered locost (used to be a 260Z) is always faster running rear ballast (0.8 seconds on a 44 second course). Lower CG the more weight percentage you're going to need on the rears. While it's true that a lighter car will always be faster for courses where acceleration and braking are important you may find that the added weight will improve the times. The new car will be built to take this into account. For the shocks you'd be better off dropping some compression rather than adding rebound. That may sound backwards but my experience has been adding rebound often reduces traction but often feels better. My advice would be to try dropping the rear ride height 2 to 4 turns on the rear perches and see if that helps. Or if you are too low in the rear possibly raising the nose. Hope this helps, Cary

It's a nice concept but for the $12K asking price I'd rather have an enclosed trailer, although there are pros and cons to those as well. One thing I thought I saw was the video of one of these towing looked like the rear wheels were wobbling. If that's the case I wonder how the tires will deal as well as long term life of the trailer. One thing to keep in mind on many trailer tires is you need to keep the speed down. Many of them tend to get hot easily and wear, chunk, or generally shred themselves to death. Cary

I've never worried about side to side much on my car. It's more important to get the car balanced so it corners the same both ways, unless you have a specific reason to try asymmetry. I had a sports racer for a brief amount of time and it could be balanced side to side with ballast but I found that it worked better using the ballast for setting front to rear balance and allowing it to be uneven side to side. Even with same size tires front and rear it is better to have a slight rear bias if you can get it. As the power goes up you'll get faster running more rear weight and tire if you can add it. The Camaro is cool but it's like bringing a plastic spork to a machine gun fight. It's too big and way to heavy. There's already a really cool corvette that's built the same way (Sam Platt) and it's miles off the leaders times. But I'm sure it will put a smile on the owner's face and maybe that's all they wanted. Cary