tube80z

Jon, you can find economy lined bearings. But for the control arms you want the high strength ones. The other option is to do this using something like Ford tie-rod ends. But then you don't have as easy a time changing angles unless you make the mount a bolt on. For sway bar end links I'm using the cheapie QA-1 lined ends from racer wholesale. I'll be damned if I can find them on their site but they were around $7 a piece for end link sizes. Mine are three years old and have no noticeable play. Cary

I'd use the lined ends for mounting the bar. This will see a lot of stress and lined ends have lower friction. I'd also opt for them on the sway bar end links but I don't know if you'd see a measureable difference or not. Lined ends will last longer. For the control arms you definitely wanted lined ends. I'd look at Aurora or the QA-1 ends that have built in wipers. I tried using some of the non-linered ends on my car and found that they wore very quickly (less than a season of autox abuse). Cary

My 240z that I raced at hillclimbs was 2050 with a 200 pound driver sitting in it. That was a full unibody wtih cage and an L6. I ran lexan windows, fiberglass doors, nose, and extremely light wheels and tires. Things you may not think about that weigh a lot. 1. Wheels and tires (steel belted radials are heavy) 2. 280Z suspension is heavier than 240 stuff 3. seats 4. Fluids -- use a small radiator and gas tank 5. Rotating weight matters. For a drag car you don't need big fancy brakes. It's up to how much you want to do but I've seen 280s that are 2100 pounds ready to go but they are real race cars. Cary

The bar will still twist just fine. It just has more for aft movement than before. This is a much lower friction mounting method than the typical poly/pillow block mounting. It lets the bar bend in the middle, which poly/pillow mounts fight. This pic is from the rocket sports trans-am car. This is also mentioned as a good upgrade in Rowley's race car engineering book. Once you've got all the basics covered it's tricks like this that separate first from fifth place. Cary

The were in the Z car magazine a few years back if I recall correctly. I'd run them if I had the clearance. Cary

If you're running hollow 4130 bars you can probably weld tabs and re-heat treat. I tried this on a solid bar and had it crack a few times, which lead to a simple bolt-on bracket. I wasn't really sure what alloy the solid bar was. Maybe a different filler would have worked, maybe not. I'm sure JohnC has a lot of good advice on what can and can't be welded as far as sway bars go. Cary

Not really. For the front your idea sounds good. I'd weld in a doubler plate (could be a large washer to the tube). If you wanted to make it stronger you could wrap the frame rail so the vertical edge was caught. In the back I'd just drill a hole in the upright and bolt a male heim on both sides. You can weld a washer as a doubler spread the load out. My local bolt store sells uncoated steel washers that are good for this. Cary

Thanks for the info Keith. I'm not sure if it's easier or harder to do this for autox versus a road racer. Up to now I mostly used subjective feedback, a stopwatch, and tire temps. After going to Claude's seminar I invested in enough datalogging to be able to measure this on the car. I have yet to put this in actual practice beyond experiments in the shop. And from playing with this you can use ordinary linear rotary pots and linkage and seem to get data that's good too (low buck version). Where I'm really headed is being able to get real-time tire temps via IR sensors, which should help answer some of these questions. On the GC advance designs. Do you think the issues you've seen are unique to road racing? Why I ask is that I find them to work very well for me in a SoloII environment but they weren't valved right when I first go them. They feel much better than the tokicos and Koni (DAs) I've used before. Cary

Thanks for the info Keith. I'm not sure if it's easier or harder to do this for autox versus a road racer. Up to now I mostly used subjective feedback, a stopwatch, and tire temps. After going to Claude's seminar I invested in enough datalogging to be able to measure this on the car. I have yet to put this in actual practice beyond experiments in the shop. And from playing with this you can use ordinary linear rotary pots and linkage and seem to get data that's good too (low buck version). Where I'm really headed is being able to get real-time tire temps via IR sensors, which should help answer some of these questions. On the GC advance designs. Do you think the issues you've seen are unique to road racing? Why I ask is that I find them to work very well for me in a SoloII environment but they weren't valved right when I first go them. They feel much better than the tokicos and Koni (DAs) I've used before. Cary

I believe the how to modify books said they were triumph parts. I had a 510 that used sentra inner rack ends in a similar manner. The joint is beefer than most of the rod ends people use. Cary

Keith, when you are developing shocks how are you doing it? Do you use linear pots and damper velocity histograms or some other method. Cary

Keith, when you are developing shocks how are you doing it? Do you use linear pots and damper velocity histograms or some other method. Cary

So rather than using heavy tubing why can't you make this out of 10 or 11 guage sheet and weld it together? Cary

If you think this is harsh you should see corner carvers In the back nothing is usually done. You can only change the angle of the control arms by moving the inner pickup points or the outers. Both require a lot of fabrication that most aren't willing to do. That aside as long as you don't get them past flat you usually won't see any issues. You can adjust the front to make it work with the new rear. It was a definite improvement. As far as setup goes I don't think you'd have anything that different than an autox or track car. I think you really want something that is close to neutral and easy to drive and it will be adjustable anyway. Watching the D1 guys in Fontana a couple of years ago it seemed like they needed to be able to get under their competition and then control the angle as they were very close. Steering may be the area where you'd diverge from the normal thinking. I'm thinking at high slip angles parallel steering would be better than any ackerman. I'm also wondering if fiddle brakes might be something worth looking at as those would likely have more control when you are really sideways. Cary

If you think this is harsh you should see corner carvers In the back nothing is usually done. You can only change the angle of the control arms by moving the inner pickup points or the outers. Both require a lot of fabrication that most aren't willing to do. That aside as long as you don't get them past flat you usually won't see any issues. You can adjust the front to make it work with the new rear. It was a definite improvement. As far as setup goes I don't think you'd have anything that different than an autox or track car. I think you really want something that is close to neutral and easy to drive and it will be adjustable anyway. Watching the D1 guys in Fontana a couple of years ago it seemed like they needed to be able to get under their competition and then control the angle as they were very close. Steering may be the area where you'd diverge from the normal thinking. I'm thinking at high slip angles parallel steering would be better than any ackerman. I'm also wondering if fiddle brakes might be something worth looking at as those would likely have more control when you are really sideways. Cary

To clean out the holes I use a steel brush on the end of a drill. Seems to work and is easy and quick. I usually spray a little WD40 or similar on it to help get the gunk out. The last two I took apart definitely galled in this area. I put them on my lathe and used a file to flatten them down. Then loads of anti-seize as they went back together. I think when people tighten the wedge too much it does this. My race car was put back together with 5/8 bolts. When torqued they don't seem to move at all in the strut housing. I usually inspected them a couple of times a year. No wear issues that I could see. Cary

Formula V works wonders too. Use that when the tires start to go off. Cary

With 13 inch R25As I get two years before they cord. It took a set or two to figure out how to do that. I run two complete sets (8 wheels and tires) and rotate and flip the tires. I have a log that I keep of all running and keep the pairs matched. Yes it's a lot of work to do this but when you have a tight budget it makes all the difference. Typically I run 10 to 12 autoxs and 2 to 3 hillclimbs a year. Proper storage when not in use is important too. Cary

I don't know about ultimate strength. I've seen fit up with gaps filled on a number of cars and some of those have survived big wrecks. But I can tell you that I did a few basic tests before I started putting my car together. I fit a couple of tubes very well and did a basic torsion test. I fitted some poorly and did the same test. The results for me were that the poor fitup had different torsional strength in one direction versus the other. My guess is that this may have had something to do with the weld wire being stronger/stiffer. I'm not sure. But for my car I tried to get the fitup as good as I could without spending too much time on each tube. Cary

Maybe speedway or one of the other stock car suppliers has serated slotted plates you can buy. Those are used on a number of panhard bars. John, I'm assuming you'd need two of the adjusters to make the mount double shear? Cary

Sorry, I guess part of the confusion is that we're upside down here. What I was thinking is that you'd have a u-bracket the bolted to the bottom (top in your picture) of the square tube. Then you can offset this bracket using a spacer to adjust dive. Does that help? Cary

Why not go with 2 inch and put the mount on top and use spacers to adjust dive. I'm assuming the pic is looking forward and the bolt if the crossmember LCA pivot? Cary

Another sign of impending doom is bits of rubber on the hood and inner fenders. I've lost a number of them over the years before moving to better alternatives. And when the bolt gets loose on the front it's a good idea to pull the motor and check the flywheel bolts. You'll sometimes find that those will loosen up too. And vice versa. Cary

I don't think increased damping is really the issue for a Z. As far as offroad vehicles go many of the multiple shock installations are to control certain speed ranges. Cary