JMortensen

Sounds like a good time, and with all of the suspension figured out might not be that much of a time suck getting it up and running. Some of us took a decade or more to get our shit together. For a Ford powered car, look up username 74_5.0L_Z Dan is a good guy, runs a 347 stroker IIRC.

Looks like I'm late to the party. From Richard Holdener's videos I learned that any cam is a turbo cam. Since the stock Z cams are PUNY, I'd suggest you go with a healthy cam and get some benefit from it. I ran a .490/280 with SUs and Mikunis, that worked great and didn't lose low end power. I'd suggest something around there, and skip all this A and C cam stuff. ALL of the stock cams are way too small. Go bigger. Ditch stock springs and retainers, get lash pads and shorter stem seals. You won't be sorry.

I don't remember the source, but I was pretty convinced by it that the goal is to get the front wheels equal. More important than getting cross weights perfect.

What Dan is describing is a known issue with Zs that are raced. The forces on the stub axle stretch out the bearing pocket in the strut housing. Had a guy on FB DM me about the same thing just a couple days ago. Now that has me thinking about putting a reinforcement ring around where the bearing is located. I bet that would be pretty easy to do, too...

One avenue I thought seemed promising but haven't pursued is to use the adapters that people sell to screw in a cheap Chinese coilover (AZC, T3, Apex) and find a really high quality strut that fits, like a Penske or Ohlins or something. I think this is essentially the route the Coffey went to get those 46mm Bilsteins in that rally car that went across Asia, but John had the adapters machined because he was way ahead of the curve on that idea, IIRC. FWIW, that guy ended up swapping those Bilsteins out for something he thought was better. Bilsteins are supposed to be pretty tunable, but you have to have someone who can do it, which is a whole nuther can of worms... I think the easy button is to fork out big bucks for the KW or similar high quality stuff.

ZX rack is mounted behind the crossmember.

Yeah, that needs replacing for sure. Think you probably found it! If you don't mind the vibrations, get a poly or plastic one. People have also drilled hockey pucks and used them, if you happen to have one.

I just remembered a clunk I had, and turned out it was the big bolts that go through the steer knuckles and into the strut. Might check those and make sure they're tight while you're under there.

You can just remove one sway bar end link and then it will flop along and not be doing anything and shouldn't make any noise outside of maybe bushings squeaking. Easier than removing the whole thing. If it stops and you think it's around the bar/frame mount, pull it all the way off and inspect the frame rails where it bolts on. Aftermarket bars tended to rip up the frame rails when these things were new and not rusty. How about the rag joint in the steering column? OG rubber, or did you upgrade that one too? Sorry, can't help with wiring part.

I ran Buttonwillow and Streets of Willow but never Big Willow. I signed up but something came up and didn't go. Buttonwillow speeds are lower, there isn't shit out there to figure out braking markers so you end up looking for cracks in the pavement and stuff like that. Track is very hard on brakes especially if you run the hairpin, good place to stress test your build. Used to be pretty bumpy in the braking zones 20 years ago. I can't remember if you play Assetto Corsa or not, but you can download Buttonwillow and it comes with a bunch of configurations. Well worth the $6 or $7. https://www.simtraxx.net/shop/product/buttonwillow-raceway-usa-aerial-laserscanned-ac-ultimate-edition/

Yeah, lowered otherwise stock Z will have something like -3 in back and -.5 in front. Terrible.

I'm in this same boat. I widened the LCAs an inch to prevent CV bottoming and the rear ended up at something like -3.5 with the camber plates flipped and maxxed out positive. I had the same idea about removing the tubes from the uprights. I actually have Mustang 36mm Bilsteins I am going to run. They are the same length as my sectioned front struts that I run now, so I'll need to run a spacer in the back. My thought was to make a mount and bolt the uprights to it to measure the strut angle, then bend the strut tube in say 4 degrees. The camber plate should handle about 2 degrees of adjustment (guesstimate) and so if I could get somewhere in the 0 to -2 or -1 to -3 range I think it would work. My other thoughts were to cut the top of the tower out, plate it and recut the hole for the camber plate (sounds like a lot of hassle), or to make a 1" thick offset plate to mount between the bottom and top of the camber plate and move everything outboard, but seems like that might be a lot of extra stress on the camber plate and strut tower.

I was under the impression that since you don't need airflow to atomize the fuel, you should go bigger on ITBs.

They had a problem where their fabbed upright was flexing. Wasn't the arm. Maybe this one didn't get the update, or maybe the update wasn't good enough. I have similar arms (Apex modeled theirs on mine) and I don't have issues. Regardless, that doesn't look good at all.

Make sure that the suspension moves freely through the full range. Can remove springs and compress the strut with ratchet straps and make sure you don't feel any solid resistance.