JMortensen

I never bought the MN hype. Yeah, it has a small peanut chamber, but the ports and valves are smaller too and it has exhaust liners. If you really want that chamber, shaving a P90 seems to be in every way a better answer. I built an admittedly worse E31 that has less quench with about 11:1 and a bigger cam than most people run at .490/280, polished all the sharp edges in the chambers, etc. and needed 95 or 96 octane to prevent pinging. A bigger cam would have helped and I always tell people to go bigger when they start talking cams (stage 3 Schneider is not a good choice). Having been there and done that I wouldn't build an 11:1 engine again with the idea of running pump gas. Also, there isn't that much power in the last point of compression to justify the hassle that goes with it. You would do A LOT better having a 9.5 or 10:1 engine that can run 91 or whatever you have in your state and have the timing optimized than you will running the extra point of compression and having to back the timing off to prevent pinging. This is a V8 video but the point carries over. Timing has a HUGE influence on power. To relate back to L series, I think I was able to run 91 and have the timing at 0 or slightly retarded at idle, which would have been somewhere in the 15-20 degree range all in. Did that for a couple days before I started buying race gas and mixing octane booster and stuff like that. Just KILLED power. You can see the same here: https://youtu.be/HXX4zcPr9IE?t=590

No, sorry. Just convinced that the stock intake is restrictive and the stock turbo exhaust manifold has a T3 flange and is a crappy log manifold design.

Turbo. An L at that power level will have a lifespan measured in hours. I've driven zredbaron's stroker with 300 bhp. It's a lot of fun. Also requires race gas and is fragile. By comparison, I have a 2L 4 cyl GTI with somewhere in the 280ish bhp range (based on the tune and mods) and I can drive it on pump gas, and I don't feel like it's in imminent danger of catastrophic failure. I would suggest if you turbo it that you ditch the entirety of the intake/exhaust systems and start over, new manifolds, bigger turbo, intercooler, tunable FI, get rid of flap door AFM, etc. If you were going to put $10K into a stroker, I'd look at spending that money on swapping in a better engine that is already turbo'd and doing it that way. L series just has too many limitations, IMO.

The key question to me is: ARE YOU DRAG RACING? If you are, then you need to go to something really strong, and as time goes on I think a solid axle is at least as good a choice. If it's a street driver I'm guessing the 4340 axles and a CV upgrade works. Problem is that's already a lot of money, for something that should "probably survive."

I got a hold of Joe on FB, he did fold up Chequered Flag. Never met him in person but talked to him on the phone a handful of times and found him to be a good guy. Bummer at losing another good vendor.

Joe from Chequered Flag is still on FB, so I just messaged him to find if he's still in business. Just 2 weeks ago people were wishing him luck racing that weekend so it would surprise me if he were out of business. I don't have the patience to go through that Super 8.8 thread, but that's a very strong differential. I got to the post where the guy was talking about 2000 hp axles and tuned out. Just look out for systems that end up 100 lbs heavier than they started. Some of the other attempts at 8.8s are just ridiculously heavy. Especially if you have 400 hp, the weight is a bad trade off.

I had a NB and the surfboard seats suck. Worst part about the NB.

Supposed to be a manual setting, but IME they never work quite right, and this one is no exception. Hit the rev limiter or hang close to it for a couple seconds and it will upshift just as you dive into the braking zone for the next corner. I'm pretty shocked at how much I enjoy driving it. FWD hatches never really appealed to me, but I wanted something that is fun and that I could run the kids around and go to the grocery store with. I've put a bunch of money into it already, but so far I am loving it.

Another tip is to make the holes for the screws oversized a little bit. Apparently if they're tight you can crack it when it heats and cools. I used plastic spacers from mcmaster.com to get my hatch glass to sit flush.

Jigsaw cuts Lexan like butter. Just don't peel the protective film off, and think about adding some masking tape around the lines too. It scratches so easily and that shoe on the jigsaw has to drag all over it. I buy my Lexan at tapplastics.com. Not sure if they have locations in SoCal, but there has to be someone in that area that sells 4x8 sheets. If you need smaller pieces it's cheaper on ebay than at TAP, FWIW.

I would weld and grind that, personally. If you're using poly I'd suggest sanding the bushings down so that they're not way longer than the sleeve in the middle. If rubber, just remember not to torque until it's on the ground.

I used AL rivnuts all over my build. They work great. I've hit cones at autoxes with the flares hard enough to spider web the gelcoat, but the rivnuts were unaffected. You don't need a lot of torque on 1/4-20 bolts, which is what I used, so that also is a non-issue IMO. I have had a few spin where the surface they were put into wasn't totally flat (trans tunnel for instance). They're easy to remove and redo, I expect the zinc or stainless will be slightly more hassle. I bought some zinc plated steel ones and they were way too stiff for my Harbor Freight rivnut hand pliers. No friggin way I was going to do that over and over again, and I glued in a windshield with that glue by hand with a caulking gun. Not touting my super strength, just saying I will put up with a lot if I don't have to buy an expensive tool, and I was not going to do the zinc ones by hand. If you have a pneumatic gun, then maybe consider zinc or stainless if you're worried about it, but AL is fine.

On the subject of DCTs, I bought a 2007 GTI with a DCT with a bunch of go fast parts basically as a daily, grocery getter, and winter autoxer since the Z leaks from everywhere. I've got thousands of hours on sims, so very much used to the flappy paddle shifting, left foot braking, etc. My main concern about DCT was that it would shift for me when I didn't want it to. This was a problem on the Porsche tiptronics that I worked on back in the day. Mine is supposedly tuned, but it does still shift on its own when I autox it and have it in manual mode. Despite this, I love it. I understand that a better (more expensive) tune on the DCT ECU might help, and will try that eventually. But it really doesn't feel that much like an automatic. You hit the paddle it shifts NOW. Downshift at higher rpms and you can hear it rev match. It's pretty damn cool.

One other aspect which may or may not be pertinent is the transmission bell housing. I was looking at my LS engine and trying to figure out how much ground clearance I needed. I bought a custom oil pan that was shorter, then when I bolted it up I realize that the bell housing hung down about as far as the stock Camaro pan did, so I paid a bunch for a pan that didn't gain me any clearance. Shame on me for not looking at some pics before I ordered the pan.

He had a Quaife sequential gearbox so shifter was likely right next to the steering wheel.

Never saw pictures of John's, but Cary (tube80z) sent me pics of his mounts that had the engine back 4" maybe 15 or 20 years ago. He might still have them. Not sure if it was lowered. I think you need dry sump or a shorter sump to lower it 2" and not smack the pan on the ground.

Mine ended up at 2352. And it turns. I got sick last year (pretty much all year), finally had surgery in April for "smoldering diverticulitis", recovered for a few months, then bought a GTI to race in the rainy winters here. So I have been racing once this year, and it was in the GTI, which understeers like a mofo and is getting camber plates and a racy alignment in a couple weeks. I wish I had my fastest run from this day which was good enough for 2nd overall and less than a second behind a stripped, supercharged S2000 on slicks, but I'm terrible about starting the camera.

https://zcardepot.com/products/spindle-pin-removal-tool-240z-260z-280z

When I was putting mine together I found a bunch of people have issues with the spring loaded belt tensioners, particularly when getting on and off the gas a lot (road racing and autocrossing) so I got a manual tensioner instead. Wasn't that expensive and I've never had an issue. If you have any more problems with that, it's a simple thing to try next.

Got that one from Coffey back in the day...

I pulled one apart maybe 10 years ago. All I remember about it is that it's not a big deal at all. I had the spring out and all that, I think my purpose was to clean and grease the bearing. Take the column out of the car and figure it out. Just not that complicated.

Yep, my front end is way heavier than it needed to be also. Didn't want to make a mold. Also went twice thickness on Knytex, which was totally unnecessary in retrospect. Totally agree about it being a PITA and not fun, but I want to do a diffuser and floor pan, some diffusers for the front splitter, dive planes, some other stuff. Stuff you can't purchase, or that wouldn't fit my car if it was made to fit a stock one.

It looks like you just molded it, no vacuum. Is that right? I bought a vacuum pump and haven't used it yet. Can infuse resin or lay it up wet and then apply vacuum, and can get fairly complicated. I got majorly sidetracked, but would like to get back to it at some point.

Cary's problem is he doesn't talk enough; the dude is a reservoir of knowledge. Pretty much every time I was waffling on some part of my car, he made an argument and I went the way he suggested. That I have 257 "reputation points" and he has 28 shows the errors of the reputation point system.

The newer cars on AC often have it integrated into the dash display, and you see it there. Older cars will give you sector times, but not real time data. I guess it's more realistic that way, but like you, I really love having the data realtime. "Oh, I got on the gas earlier and I made .2 seconds by the end of the straight" kinda stuff.