JMortensen

This is good. The cheesy 300ZXT ones had one drive clutch and a big spacer in there instead. Out of curiosity, what are the ramp angles like and do you have thrust washers on the spider gears?

I know a lot of these CV adapters have been sold for 240Z's over the years, and there has been considerable discussion revolving around flipping the cages on the CV shafts in order to prevent the CV shafts from bottoming. I believe that on a 240Z (and probably a 260 and 280 as well but I don't have them to measure on), flipping the cages doesn't get anywhere near fixing the bind issue. What happens if the CV bottoms out? Well it's pretty much the same thing as if the stock U/Jointed halfshaft bottoms. John Coffey did a writeup on that on his website: http://www.betamotorsports.com/bench...0handling.html but the quick description is this: I can recall one guy (mayolives) who destroyed his limited slip and determined that this CV issue was the cause. When you use the CV shaft as the suspension bump stop, the loads not only go into the wheel bearings and stub axle as John describes, but they're transmitted equally into the differential as well. So carrier bearings take a beating, in limited slips the side gears move in and out so they take a beating, the pinion gears in the center are forced to run on each other while under great pressure, and if the carrier bearings start to go this can cause misalignment in the ring and pinion as well. M2 Differentials has manufactured a solution to this problem. It is a set of custom CV shafts that puts the CV right in the middle of its travel. Being in the middle of the travel is particularly important for guys running adjustable control arms or rear camber bushings, as they might want to make the arms longer or shorter, and there is room to do so without having to worry about the shafts. There is the possibility of buying just the short shaft and then using the stock driver's side shaft on the passenger side of the car, but that wouldn't allow for shortening of the control arm. The set of shafts is normally $575, price will go down to $500 per pair if we can get a group of 10 to buy, a LH shaft is $350. Discussion that led to this product's development: http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/...le-discussion/ Installation documented with very nice pictures: http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/..._1#entry967257 Vendor thread on Hybrid Z for group buy: http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/...fts-group-buy/

I was inclined to disagree with you, but I just worked it out here: http://webspace.webring.com/people/cz/z_design_studio/ and with the Vette rear tire size of 275/40/18, the 3.42 gears with T56 gets you 57 mph in 1st and 85 in 2nd. A 4.11 gets, 47 in 1st and 70 in 2nd at 6500 rpm. A 3.73 gear gets 52 in 1st and 78 in 2nd, and a 3.90 gets 50 and 74. For my money, I'd go 3.73 or 3.90. That said, when you're ready I'd love to sell you that gear: http://m2differentials.com/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=1&keyword=c5+ring+and+pinion and an install kit: http://m2differentials.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=791_1339_1538_1597&products_id=4959 Not a vette guy myself, so I've never even heard of the billet side plates or forced (forged?) shafts.

SRF and FA? That must have been worse than the video...

I wouldn't focus on the top gears, especially considering the wide spread between 5th and 6th. I think you'll get much better performance by just ignoring 6th. I believe you can delete the skip shift nonsense.

So reading these it looks like JTR has a driveshaft flange that fits a 1310 u/j. So if your donor was a Camaro and you had the 1330, then you need to take off the rear flange, get an adapter 1330/1310 u/j and reassemble. The other option is to run 1330's front and back and use John's adapter. That's a real toss up. 1310 should be strong enough, so I'd probably err on the side of not bolting more parts on and running the JTR flange. The conversion u/j is not a problem and they're easy to find.

For autox look at the top speed in 2nd gear. That might make a bit of difference, as it sucks to run out of gear on a straightaway and be running on the rev limiter, but doing so is almost always faster than shifting. Depending on where you run and your course layouts, 70 or 75 in 2nd should do nicely with a fast car. The Marina autoxes near Laguna Seca had some nice open courses and sticky concrete. That's a fun place to run. Haven't been to any other autoxes in the bay area.

If you're putting it in a 240 with an L6, I would guess that the 280Z flange is the most common. If you're putting a V8 in it, I suspect that the John's cars adapter or a fabricated driveshaft with the Chevy front and Datsun rear U/J is the most common.

Nice looking car. Agree though, way too much body roll. Frequency of the springs relates to the spring vs the sprung weight and motion ratio, so a 200 in/lb spring might be a 5Hz spring on a formula car or a 1Hz spring on a heavy car. Read the FAQ on brakes/wheels/suspension/chassis. Particularly Dan McGrath's post here: http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/topic/63492-suspension-tech-motion-ratio-unsprung-weight/ There is a lot of information to be had here. The one thing I would suggest is that if you go really stiff on the springs you'll probably need to do some pretty significant chassis reinforcement, otherwise the chassis will just flex, rather than the spring working. That's a whole other rabbit hole, but search "chassis reinforcement" and you'll find some good info on that as well. Good luck and keep us posted.

I don't think there are a lot of pinion flange failures, but I don't know the ins and outs of pinion flanges. I think JTR and John's Cars might have something for you, as they've been putting these diffs into high powered V8's for years. http://www.johnscars.com/ From John's Cars http://www.johnscars...zcar/zcar.html: Makes sense to me to run an adapter if it permits a full size U-joint. I'm not big on bolting parts onto parts onto parts, but it seems like the U-joint is the most failure prone thing in there, so probably an improvement. I believe stock Camaro uses 1330, which is pretty big compared to stock Datsun.

Yes, no crush sleeve. Swap, red loctite, and torque to spec, which is something like 135-210 ft lbs.

No, the viscous has a different 30 spline axle. You would need the 88 300ZXT SS CV's and a Z31T CV adapter.

A manual 280ZX will have an R200 already, so it will have the correct 29 spline diff stub axles. If you had an R180 and swapped in the R200, then the diff stubs from the R180 would be 25 spline and wouldn't fit the R200.

"Low lead" isn't that low. FWIW, I have run tanks of AvGas and Trick racing gas (both mixed with pump gas) back to back, and I couldn't tell the difference. Wasn't testing fuel economy though. Seat of the pants tells me that both made more power than the Xylene/Tolulene/Mineral Spirits/ATF homebrew octane boosters that I tried.

I haven't seen a wrong answer yet. In the interest of clarity: 1. Pinion flange 2. Diff stub axle diff output shaft 3. Splined section of the stub axle 4. Stub axle

Thanks for the writeup, I appreciate it.

I used to buy water pumps from the manufacturer who made them for Nissan. I never asked for a diesel pump, and I never got a stamped impeller, but it might have been a smaller diameter cast impeller. It has to be at least 15 years since I put one in, but the manufacturer had a French name. Perault? Something like that. I guess they changed companies somewhere along the way. Disappointing to see factory parts with stamped impellers.

Yes. Should just plug and play, might need shims to set backlash. Go to the FAQ and I did a write up about putting an LSD into a differential.

Just you. Just looking at a pair of inners sitting on a shelf here, they look right to me.

There is a good bit in the book "Think Fast" about testing torsional rigidity, which is done in the same way as the race car in the AU picture. By testing rigidity at the hubs, you include suspension component and bushing compliance, which is not accounted for in the Miata test. It is a pain in the ass to do it right, and while that Miata test shows an obvious improvement, it's tough to quantify how much of an improvement without more accurate measurements, and it skips the testing of control arms, etc. So you can say "it got better" but not "it's as good as it needs to be to run the spring rates that I want to run". The thing that is missing in 1 tuff Z's links is any attachment to the suspension attachment points. I like the rocker mods, but they don't do anything particularly useful in and of themselves. They need to be tied in to where the loads enter the chassis or where the chassis is weak. This is the reason why cages that don't attach to the strut towers aren't nearly as useful as ones that do. Ultimately all loads go into the suspension pickups. While a cage that doesn't take this into account might make you safe in an accident, a large part of the benefit to a cage is that it allows the car to respond accurately to things like heavier spring rates. If you have a cage that attaches to the wheel well as in the articles, or with backstays that attach to the rear of the car and miss the strut towers, then you've added the weight of the cage, but haven't used it to stiffen the first thing that is going to flex, which is the strut towers. You might make a large change in spring rate and feel no difference in the balance of the car, because the chassis is flexing instead of allowing the spring to do its job. That said, if you're going to build a roll cage, it's going to tie in near the rockers. I think it makes a lot more sense to hit the rockers with the cage than to just attach to the floor, because the rockers are much stronger than the floor. The cage is likely to be stronger and stiffer than the rockers that it attaches to. That being the case, then I think modifying the rockers is worthwhile. If you're just looking to make the chassis stiffer and not looking at a full cage, then I would not start with modifying the rockers. But if you're going to tie the rockers into the suspension, then it makes sense to do the rockers. I'd do STB's first, then a 4 pt roll cage that mounts to the rockers (this is really where you need to know how far you're going to go). If you are going to then add bars from the rockers to the upper frame rails or the TC buckets, then reinforcing the rockers makes a lot of sense.

Stock LCA length is 14.5" center to center. Set the lengths equal front and rear and you will be close enough to drive to the alignment shop.

If it's a race car, then I would suggest camber plates. Camber plates are a lot easier to adjust, and adjusting them won't change your toe setting. If you use either camber bushings or adjustable arms, you'll be changing the toe setting by adjusting the camber and you can get the toe or thrust angle wrong, which basically makes adjustments at the event very difficult/impossible.

Having a slightly wider track in the front is a good thing for cornering. You'll see lots of autoxers running front wheel spacers for just that reason. Your toe setting is surprisingly good for no adjustability. If you're not racing, I'd just slap some poly bushings in the back and run it, or camber bushings if you want to adjust camber and toe.

Just to be the counterweight here, I had an L28 with flattops (no overbore) and cc'd polished chambers and 280 valves with 44s. In CA and WA state with 91 octane oxygenated fuel, I could not get the thing run without pinging. I had to mix pump gas with race gas to make it work with timing in the mid 30s. I ran that head previously on an L28 with dished pistons and I could run 87 in it. If you're not going for the last hp, I'd suggest running the dished pistons. Dropping the compression down a bit and being able to run all the timing you want is a very good trade off. There is nothing worse for a street car than building it on the ragged edge for pump gas and then listening for pinging EVERYWHERE you go. The focus changes from having fun beating the crap out of the car to wondering if you're destroying the engine. I'd also suggest a larger cam. I ran something close to the Stage IV cam with SU's and it worked great with the lower compression pistons, I wanted more cam when I went to Mikunis, and really wanted more when I went to the flat tops. I'd also do a regrind instead of running the Schneider. Search "schneider" or "schneider lobe" and I'm sure you'll see why. Something in the .500/280 or 290 range should work nicely for SU's. Mine was .490/280 with a pretty aggressive profile. Get roundtop SU's.

I wouldn't put a cover on it. Just leave it be if you're not going to WD-40 it.