tube80z

I'd agree. Pit wisdom often is not. John, on the ROD you ran it pretty much with the controls arm near horizontal didn't you? In that situation the ride height differences have a lot more to do with tire diameter. In my situation I'm running very short FA tires on 13 inch wheels. Did the ROD ever run against Vic Sias's BSP Z? I'd be curious how closely mathced they would have been. Cary

Totally agree. Machining always takes ten times longer than you'd think. I resort to machining when I have no other choice. And that's probably why I'm so slow at it. But I have a friend that is very good and anything machine still takes a long time. Even fancy CNC tools are not as quick as you might think. Cary

Sorry, I forget that some of this may not translate too well. A bridge reamer is probably best explained here http://www.nutty.com/reamer.html. It just so happens the standard 5/8 bridge reamers tapered section matches the Ford tie-rod end taper. So instead of heims at the end of the suspension you use tie-rod ends and tapered holes. Very similar to the front suspension on a BMW where they use balljoints for the inner pivots. Probably not as good as a heim but will last forever on the street. Just an option. Hopefully this helps. I have some pictures but I can't figure out how to make this forum post them. Maybe I'll put them in my gallery and give you a URL. Cary

Delrin is okay but not that great of a bushing material (poor impact strength and shatters when cold). Nylon expands and contracts a lot with humidity. A better choice would be one of the UHMW plastics. Very hard to machine. A couple of people used to make TC rod kits with steel cups and UHMW balls that lasted forever. It would be a good option for the rear bushings. Or if you decided to do something trick you could use Ford tie-rods instead of heims. A standard bridge reamer is the same taper. This will get you a solid joint that articulates and will hold up well to dirt and grime. It's an old streed rodders trick. Ford tie rod ends can be had for less than $10 a piece. Cary

Yep, tried it and it works. You need special structural closed cell foam. And you need to make sure you have no rust as you are basically screwed if you need to do a repair. The foam is toxic when melted and makes it nearly impossible to weld. Our old race car went to the JY because of this. It's a common thing to hear about with the japanese tuner crowd. http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/p...6scc_proj300zx/ for more info. Cary

Check out the online machine shops. It may be an easy way to get your piece made. Cary

A safety washer is built this way. http://www.spidertrax.com/fabrication_msw.htm With these you can use a normal rod end. Cary

I guess the question would be how much travel would you have? That's going to be the key. For the steering arms you may want to consider having them cut out of structural steel rather than playing with the stock pieces anymore. I've used T1 and Formualoy 4040 (or something like that) with good results. You can bend the steering arm to have the correct alignment with the tierod. Somewhere I have some pics -- just need to figure out how to post pics here. The trick way would be to change the inner heim to have the bolt going vertical through it. It is lower friction and you could use spacers to set a specific RC. If you mount the outer heim in single shear you will want to use a safety washer on top and bottom. They allow more angle and if teh bearing falls out of the race will mechanically trap it. Cary

Here's what I did. I cut an old set of tierods apart and chucked the end in my lathe and turned it down to make a bushing. This was welded into some thick wall tube that was tapped for the 5/8 heim on the other end. Your way sounds easier on all honesty. I have a welder and seem to like to figure out how to make all my projects into welding projects. Maybe I need to by some hammers ... For the heim on the steering arm I'd recommend some safety washers/misalignment bushings. I got mine from spidertrax. These will allow about 22 degrees of motion before binding. To drill out the arm I used a 5/8 bridge reamer. These are for aligning rivet holes in buildings and are fairly cheap. Most people don't know the taper part is the same as a Ford tierod end. This is a cheap way to make effective linkages that don't use heims and can hold up to dirt a lot better in case you want to go that way. I think the Datsun taper is also the same as some international parts if that helps. Cary

Have you tried changing the rake to balance the car? Lower the end you want to stick more or raise the other -- keeping in mind where things work best on these cars. You might be surprised at the results. Cary

The aluminum arms can be bent if you anneal the aluminum. If you have some severe bends to do you may need to make completely new arms. I've seen a few where a new end was bolted to the splined bit. You can also make hollow bars and weld everything up. 4130 with proper heat treating is what you need to do to make them last. I've tried a few mild steel versions on my car and they will start cracking after a couple of years. I didn't think it would work at all and was surprised they lasted this long. There's a lot of weight that can be saved by going this route. If you're not concerned about the weight good ol' stressproof is hard to beat. Cary

It depends on what you can do in your stock class. In SCCA you can't do anything to the coils. Some local clubs allow a little more and you could try and use packers but I seriously doubt these would help. My experience with them is that they generally lead to unpredictable handling if you get into them on a corner. Another option would be to use droop limiting. Probably not legal either but can help to keep the car from rolling as much. And if you really want to use the stock springs you can limit droop and preload them with shims. But since you're going to have to pull all this apart why not just put in more appropriate springs? Cary

I seem to recall a GT-2/3 Mazda that uses something like this at Portland (PIR). But they aren't wilwood. They are an expensive stacked and furnace brazed rotor. So in concept they work but I think the problem as John mentions is that the Wilwoods can't handle the heat. Now for an autocross car getting heat into the rotors quickly is good and would allow you to use a real race pad and keep unsprung weight down. Cary

71 240 Z (built for GT-2) Glass nose Glass doors Glass hatch lexan windows Basic cage 280Z engine (9 pound flywheel) 13 inch formula atlantic racing slicks 2 gallons gas 1850 before ballast 75 Tube80Z (built for SCCA soloII EM) Ford 5.0 Aluminum heads, manifold, etc. T5 with dog ring conversion most of above body work 13 inch formula atlantic racing slicks 2 gallons gas 1620

I've found that if you turn the key while working the wheel against the lock it will usually release. Very common on the Nissan line when they get older. Cary

I don't think you need to replace the rears. The balance bar should be setup so that when you press it all the way and have pressure on the cylinders it is straight across. At rest they will typically sit at an angle when you have different cylinders. They can handle a large range of adjustment. I prefer to run a slightly larger master and have less pedal movement. I ran the numbers you listed and I came up with needing 3/4 front and a 1 inch rear to get a range of .51 to 1.43 gs (and used the numbers of .58 for front mu and .4 for rear) With a proportioning valve I think this would work. I have a friend with a 510 than ran this same setup and it worked for him. He just used smaller MCs to have less pedal effort. You can also use different pad materials in back to help out. I run the PFC 01 material for my car. You might consider one of the aggressive fronts with a medium torque rear, like the 97 compound. Or what ever your favorite brand of brake pad is. Cary

Jon is right. You need to think about pressure and area for brakes. The pressure is fixed by the size of the master cylinder. If you have more area for it to work against then you have more force available. To increase brake force at one end you either need to go up in caliper piston size or down in master cylinder size. I have wilwood dynalite 4 pistons on front and 2 pistons on the rear. I use a 7/8 front master and a 3/4 rear. I have an adjustable balance bar and proportioning valve. This is adjusted to get the most ot of the rear until you really stand on it and then you get a little more front bias. It will take a bit of work to get it et right. A set of caliper bleed guages or a set of brake guages plumbed into the car can be a big help. For pads I'm using performance friction 01 material. If I can't get the heat then I switch to 97s. Cary

Why not use a stock pedal box modified for dual masters? There are a couple of people that will do that for you. I think DP products is one. Probably about the same cost as the entire pedal assembly but ti will be easier to mount. Cary

Yep, that was pretty much what I was thinking. I like it. The next step is a set of rear arms that connect to this and are adustable for toe. You really don't want to try and bind poly as it will develop a lot of friction and wear. The renderings are really cool. I don't know what you use but my hat is off to you. Cary

For cost that's a little hard to say as I had a lot of bits and pieces already. Speedway Motors has AN line kits for hotrods. I was converting over to Tilton masters and wilwood calipers and took the opportunity to convert all of it to AN. I ran a small section of braded line from the masters to hard line to make them easy to change and deal with any flex in the firewall. I'd have to say less than $200 including the flaring tool. You need a different flaring tool (37 degree flare) for the AN fittings. They use a compression sleeve and a nut to mount that compresses against the backside of the flared section on the tube. Another alternative is if you have a Parker hydraulic store in your town is to use their fittings. My local dealer quit stocking AN-3 because they didn't want people doing what I'm doing. The majority of the cost will be in the few metric to AN fittings that you need if you use stock masters and calipers. If you use aftermarket calipers that have pipe threads the fittings are less than $3 a piece. When I first did double flares I had a lot of leaks I had to chase down. My experience with AN fittings so far has been no leaks at all. It's all I use on my race cars. And if I had a street rod I'd do the same. Cary

Have you considered an X bracing for the verticals? It would need to be spaced out to clear the Diff but I think there is space. This should be stiffer. Cary

For chamering I used a small 6 fluted countersink tool on a battery operated drill. I then used a small file to prep the outer edge of the tube as well. Then I used one tube flaring tool to create the bell and another to finish it. It was a lot of work to get it to not leak. When I did the brake lines for my new brakes I threw all this stuff away and converted to AN. It didn't leak a drop and was much easier to do. You need a new flaring tool and different hardware for connections. Braided lines ar e a lot cheaper this way too. If you're looking at repacing everything you may want to do this. And if you use or are thinking of using Tilton pedals (or similar) they alread are setup for AN ends. Cary