JMortensen

Z's taking flight is not something I worry about, but also the last time my Z was on a road course was 2002 and it probably topped out at 120ish with the triples and the L28. Many people more worth of the title "racer" than me. Unfortunately I spent way too much time building and way too little time driving, and it's been all autox for the last 20 years. Hopefully I'll fix the shop/driving ratio in the next couple years.

Sealing everything up tight would be the goal, but in practice I don't think you're going to see a whole hell of a lot of difference one way or the other. I'd put a piece of sheet across the opening and fasten to the fender or bucket, and then cut the hole in the middle for the scoop. Sometimes I do these "simple" things and then hours into it I realize that it was a waste of time, then I have to do the sunk cost fallacy appraisal and decide to finish or cut my losses. Your mileage probably won't vary too much. ;)

I was talking to a friend with a GTI and he was telling me that he was doing 145 at the end of the straight at the Ridge. When they first opened they were saying a stock C6 Vette could do 150. Are you just topped out in 4th waiting for the braking zone? Pacific Raceway is dangerous, eats a lot of cars, so I wanted to go to Ridge but I figured I'd be doing 170 at the end of the straight and was honestly a bit scared of it for that reason. Figured I needed a wing before I tried it. Thoughts?

What rear gear ratio are you running? After reading Jerico I've been thinking about that. Maybe you have OD 4th, I know they make them, but with 1:1 and 3.54s I worked out a top speed of about 133 mph with a guessed tire height of 25.5

Unsurprisingly, I like the direction the front end is going in with the fenderwell removal, and the L33 idea as well. Button clutch is neat, most people say the T56 shifts pretty slow but mine changes gears fast and I attribute it to the low flexplate/clutch weight. If you don't have a winch to get it into your trailer, will need one if you go button. You can burn them up real quick trying to slip the clutch.

Yeah, I think it fit because you used different parts that fit better, so you're good to go. FWIW, I always had doubts about the weld on adapters, but to date I don't think I've ever heard of anyone breaking them. Seems the axle is still the weak link. The Modern Motorsports adapters (which I used to sell also) were radiused and just way beefier all the way around. I wish I had a profile shot of the two.

You said you followed the info in the other thread exactly. The CV adapters in that thread are much thinner and I'm guessing all of the grinding the end of the axle stuff was unnecessary. The old Modern Motorsports CV adapters don't fit, which is why I made shorter axles for a while. Usually if it's too short you won't be able to put the CVs in easily. The old anecdotes were usually things like "I had to disconnect the strut at the top, install the CV, then force the strut back into place."

So glad to hear it. Cheers!

I'd love to see Richard Holdener get a hold of a Datsunworks head. Easy for me to say, but I'm gonna say it anyway, because I've been following him for years now and he knows his shit and has a huge audience.

All I can say about ZX fronts is that the rotors are tiny. Under 10" diameter. They are vented though, and that's probably enough of an advantage to make it a good idea. Friend ran the full ZX brakes on his 510 and it worked great, even the rears that I had pad disintegration issues with. Lighter car though.

Definitely weld the bar to the chassis. A buddy of mine ripped the A pillar off of his car at an autox in the 90s. A fabricator friend fixed the A pillar and added a 4 point, then welded one single probably 3" x 6" plate from the bar to the roof right in the middle where the map light is. He said it made a huge difference, and all of the interior panels stopped squeaking when he went in and out of driveways, etc. People do this all the time now with shear panels that usually have dimple die holes on the A pillar of cages, but you can do it anywhere the cage and chassis get close. I have smaller panels on the roof, the door bars to the sills, the main hoop to the inner wall just inside the doors, and around the A pillar. I don't have pics of the top, but here is one of the hoop to inside of the door. FWIW, after I did this I learned about shear panels, and they really should be longer for better strength. Also doesn't have to be 1/8" thick. Thin metal does fine for this. .0625" is fine, .040 or .050 probably sufficient. Do some googling on roll cage shear panels and I'm sure you'll find more detailed info.

Interesting. I have 12.19 x 81 rotors front and rear, Superlite calipers front, Dynalites rear. I've only autocrossed this car, and not as much as I would like what with covid and some health issues that are now behind me. Car probably has 150 autocross runs on it. The local autox venue is on a circle track, so at the end of the run you do the length of the front straight, probably putting my car at ~100ish mph. I'm running Hawk Black pads based on John Coffey's recommendation (they work, but MAN, they are DUSTY AF). Rotors are blue at the outer edges and pads are probably worn 1/3 of the way through. I have no venting, because autox. Thinking you could adjust your venting to make the pads you want to use work. I can say with absolute certainty that having too much thermal capacity is a whole hell of a lot better than not enough. When I had the L6 and was doing track days on stock front rotors with stock calipers and Toyota calipers, I got to the point where I no longer got adrenaline rushes when the fluid boiled and the pedal went to the floor. I got used to it. That's not good. I also pushed the piston through the pad backing plate when the pad material gave up and exited, and had rear 280ZX pads overheated to the point where the pad was breaking up and coming off in chunks. I agree that your average street Z with 12" brake kit is overkill, and I could probably get by on my car right now with stock brakes while autocrossing. The main point, as you said, is that the TIRES allow you to put heat into the brakes. It's not the V8 or the turbo that requires bigger brakes. The stickier the tires, the more brakes you need, and obviously the longer the courses or the sessions, the more brakes you need as well. I did all my braking carnage on the L6. I'm still a bit intimidated to take this thing to the big tracks in the area, as one of them is famous for eating cars (just dangerous) and the other had a friend's GTI on street tires doing 145 at the end of the front straight. I'd be going a lot faster. 170? More? That's high stakes stuff...

Wow. Those cantilevers are giving up some weight. Must be the sidewalls. I guess they're 19 or 20 lbs. The FA rears are 13.75 x 24.5 x 15, only weigh 23 lbs, and they're 100mm wider and 1.5" larger diameter. The FA fronts are 9.4 tread width and 17 lbs. Wheels are a lot heavier though. The steel wheels I'm running are 24 lbs IIRC, so 47 for each corner. Could probably get that down 10 lbs if I spent a whole bunch of money on wheels. I kinda like the steelies though. Shows how low dollar the build is, like the stained plywood splitter...

Square handles better. Z's understeer out of the box. Putting smaller tires on the front makes it worse.

Cantilever slicks are weird, the sidewall folds over on itself and so the tires are much wider than the wheels. They look the opposite of stretched tires (see below). I haven't run them myself, but I'm pretty sure you can only get them in bias ply and they need very little camber. I did run 10" radial slicks on an 8" wheel, they were floppy in slaloms but still faster than street tires. zredbaron has 245s on 16x8s A7s and they are definitely pinched onto the wheels but they work pretty well, not nearly as floppy as my slicks were. Hoosier will tell you that the tread should be .5 or 1" narrower than the rim width, FWIW. If you are buying wheels, you should follow that guideline. If you already have wheels, sometimes you have to run what you have. Worse things have happened. By way of comparison, my Konig Rennsport 17x8s are 17 lbs and mounted with a racy 200TW tire it is 39 lbs. Slicks are built lighter but ~40 lbs for reasonably priced wheels and tires in a 225/45/17 is not bad, IMO.

225/45/17s are the same diameter as 225/40/18. I switched from 18s to 17s for ride quality and wheel/tire weight on my GTI. Lost 15 lbs PER WHEEL going from 18s and Pilot Sport all season 550 TWs to Konigs and Conti Extreme Contact Force. Obviously you can get higher quality wheels and all of that, but if you're not going super wide on the wheels there's quite a few tires available in 17s.

I bent the 240 pedal a bit so my throttle cable went through the firewall opening correctly. Your's looks like a 280 pedal, much thicker metal. I wouldn't be afraid to bend it. If the stop and cable are adjusted, it should only ever be fighting the spring tension on the throttle body.

Try an older 911, they're ridiculous enough that they sell gas pedal extensions and blocks to make it easier to heel toe. I like your solution, though the spacer looks thin. Just make sure after you install that you're getting full throttle and not overextending the cable. Will probably need to adjust the stop.

The MR2 struts will still see friction at the piston and upper strut bushing. Don't imagine it will be a problem to run them without oil since they won't be doing anything other than taking the side loads from the struts and you've eliminated all the heat from them actually damping. Very cool idea.

KW is supposed to be top notch. Dude's background music is super annoying.

Seems like it should do the same thing. IIRC the adjustable slave has about 1" of threaded section. Couldn't tell you how much of that is unusably short, I seem to remember running around the middle of the adjustment. Could probably get a longer bolt and cut and make a new pin if necessary. EDIT-at some point the angle on the fork is going to be bad and that might cause wear...

What thickness polycarbonate? I think most of the sanctioning bodies require 1/4" for front, but you can use whatever you like on sides and rear (most use 1/8).

One way limits slip on accel (common for FWD). 1.5 way limits some on decel, more on accel. 2 way does both accel and decel equally. FWIW, a limited slip doesn't "lock" but a locker does. That means even if you lift one tire off the ground, the tire on the ground will still get power. A limited slip limits, unload a tire and it will spin. High end 1.5 ways are adjustable by changing the ramp angles on the cross pin shaft. If you do sim racing you can see adjustments for percentage lock under accel and decel, that's adjusting the slip for each. Here is a screen from Assetto Corsa. This fully adjustable limited slip is set up basically like a 2 way. Should probably back off that decel a bit, but it's fairly stable under braking. 2 ways are nice for drifters because they tend to make the car loose on corner entry. If I jacked up the power and coast settings the car would act more like a welded rear end. If I lowered them all the way it would be like having no LSD at all. Helicals can be set up to do any of the 3 options, 1, 1.5, or 2 way.

Roof mounted pedals was a bold choice.

I think you'll have a hard time finding flares built to the precision you'd need to take advantage of that tiny gap from the rivnut being reduced. I only have experience with the zccjdm flares and the MAS flares from back in the day, but neither of those was a super tight fit. Another option is to silicone them on. Saw a video of a guy in Japan doing a RWB 911 and he just used a bead of black silicone to fix the seam, looked good to me, but I don't mind the welting either and just have the flares screwed on with nothing at all to fix the gaps on my own car, so YMMV.