JMortensen

I kept my car in bare metal for over a year as I screwed around with different parts of the suspension. There was surprisingly little surface rust at the end. Very very little. And this was in a non-climate controlled garage with crappy insulation in Seattle. I did run a propane heater when I worked out in the garage, which I was told would cause condensation and make the rust worse, never happened (at least not to any appreciable degree). When I went to move I thought I had to drive the car through the rain, so I sprayed it down with WD-40, and that worked just fine. I was told that paint would never stick to it again, but I cleaned it all up with brake cleaner and acetone, and when I painted it I had no trouble. Turns out it was dry for the short time that I moved the car from the old house to the new house.

That's basically how I did mine too. Another benefit of attaching the link to the strut is that it can be a lot longer, and this makes that angularity of the end link less of a factor. If you're running a short end link you need to have a way to move the connection on the control arm also, otherwise the end link could get so misaligned that it could bottom out, and that angle on the end link affects its rate as well, so keeping them relatively upright is a good idea...

Search "circle track sway bar" and you'll find quite a few options. You can get custom length bars too.

You didn't post the list John.

Whatever was handy.

You have to be careful when adding length to the control arm because the tie rods aren't that long. Not saying that this would prevent the OP from fixing his problem in this way, just pointing out that there is a pretty limited amount of adjustment before you need to start thinking about longer tie rods.

The TC rod was incidental in this particular failure. This failure was caused by the lateral loading of the control arm, probably with some bending introduced by the sway bar at the same time. I would conclude via the long history of clevises being used on Z car TC rods and other race car suspension that the clevis is not a problem in and of itself.

Weight transfer puts no stress on the TC rod, just like taking 100 lbs and laying it on top of the front crossmember puts no stress on the TC rod. The g forces created by braking do and the g forces create the weight transfer, but the weight transfer itself is unrelated to TC failure.

Weight transfer is, as I said before, a side effect of g forces and CG height. If you could design a car that ran on a track with a big ditch underneath the body of the car, you could suspend a weight at or below the hub centerline and you could get 0 or even rear weight transfer under braking. The g forces cause the weight transfer, the weight transfer (and so the spring and strut) doesn't absorb the g forces. Failed stock TC rods. I have yet to see one that isn't bent. Seriously. Every single one I've ever looked at has been at least slightly bent. As far as failures go, both of the ones that I've seen fail and all of the ones on that scary tc failure thread were stockers that were run with poly bushings.

Isn't there a little filter right on the carb body itself? I seem to remember my brother-in-law getting stranded a couple times before he cleaned and coated his gas tank, and we pulled the little screen filter and it was full of rust.

I think the SWEPCO is worth a shot. You might try it full strength and 50/50. I've converted people with the steel synchro'd comp transmissions to SWEPCO from Redline, but haven't done a brass synchro back to back, so I'd be really interested to see what you think of the two as compared to each other.

Depends on how hard you press on the brakes. Most people, once they realize that there is a problem and especially if they have an idea of what is wrong, do not jump on the brake pedal. I think you're seriously underestimating the forces at work here. Braking produces g forces through the tires. So if you slow a 2500 lb car at 1 g, there is 2500 lbs of forward force that is being resisted at those tires. How is the g force getting to the tires? Through the suspension links. What part of that force goes into the TC rod on a Z? I don't know, but it does seem best positioned to resist the force of the chassis trying to push the wheel fore or aft. If we assume that 80% of the braking power comes from the front wheels, that means that 1000 lbs of force is going to each front tire. My SWAG: 850 lbs? 900 lbs? Once you realize that there is a problem and stop at .2 g, you're probably putting a couple hundred lbs of force on there max, and if you've been outside the car and seen it, the front tire does move all over the place even at slow speeds with no TC rod to hold it in place. Can a poly end link hold 900 lbs of force? It better. I had calculated my sway bar rate at upwards of 350 in/lbs.

You didn't have a monoball on the front control arm. If you have poly or your kevlar LCA bushings, that would help a lot, along with a poly sway bar bushing. I've seen two pop in real life while racing and both were able to drive back to the pits, both were using poly. I'm quite sure that if mine were to fail with monoballs everywhere, there would be a much bigger problem. From: http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/topic/22762-scary-tension-rod-failure/page__st__20

If you look at strut rods (T/C rods in Z car lingo) on other race cars, you'll see that a clevis is a pretty popular way to do it. Most clevises are bolted to the arm, but having the tab that the clevis bolts to be an integral part of the arm seems a stronger way to do it to me. Most of those clevises have a 3/8" gap in them, so that's a hefty chunk of metal. Another way to say it would be: What's stronger, a 3/8" piece of metal bolted to the ball joint or a 3/8" piece of metal that is either welded (older AZC suspension) or integral to the control arm? I agree with you guys who think the TC rod takes a lot of force. The weight transfer and spring compression is a side effect of the g forces and cg height during decel. Those g forces are still going into the suspension somewhere, and I think somewhere means strut top, ball joint, LCA inner pivot, and TC rod. I think the force created at the strut top and ball joint transfers to the TC Rod and only a relatively small amout of force is seen at the lower control arm pivot. You really don't want joints at both ends of the TC rod because that would allow the lower control arm to swivel, which would mean that the TC rod would no longer be in line with the rear bracket. I think this is a recipe for TC rod failure. The TC rod should be solid up front.

My ZX 5 speed had a rattle at idle in neutral. Once you started moving you couldn't hear it anymore. My understanding is that it is countershaft bearing noise, it's been discussed here and at classiczcars quite a few times. A friend of mine had a pretty noticeable one. She replaced the bearings and the noise was gone... for a week. Replaced the bearings again and it was gone... for a week. If this rattle is the same as she and I had, I think it is affected by having a light flywheel, and she's been driving her car with that rattle for 10 years now, so I wouldn't get too upset about it. Neither of us tried to put the thing in R though, so I do agree that changing the oil and using a strong magnet on the drain plug is a good idea.

You could do that, but you'd have to fill the hole in the fenderwell. Might be easier to get a 2nd Z, (or the parts) and cut the strut tower down the middle and splice it on to make the strut tower wider. Just be sure to reinforce the plate in the strut tower...

The motor oil does that. Google Krown Rust Treatment. It is a Canadian business that drills holes in inaccessible areas and sprays oil into the cavities to prevent rust.

Pillowball is not a common term for the USA. It's JDM and Australian lingo from what I can tell. Those are 5/8" female rod ends. For the top you want a monoball. If you search google for rod ends and monoball, especially if you add in "circle track" you will find plenty of suppliers. Just lowering your car should not get you 6 degrees of camber. Not even close. I'm thinking you might have something else going on. Usually a really low Z ends up with 3-4 degrees in the back and 1-2 degrees in the front. I like the way my control arms were made. The guy who made mine cut the arm just like bjhines did in your pictures, but he didn't cut the top off of the arm. He used a tube that plugged into the end of the arm and plug welded it in several areas, then welded all the way around where the tube hit the stock arm. Then he welded in a threaded bung and used a male rod end. I have no fear that John's arm will hold up just fine, but that is a lot of welding to fill up the arm, and if you start with a larger tube, you don't need to do all of that.

You could run the biscuit style camber plates, they adjust both at the same time. I wouldn't use the Kmac plates with the poly bushing, but with the monoball they're probably OK. You could also run a smaller diameter wheel/tire combo. I think it's quite likely that you'll need to cut to get that much caster.

Sounds heavy. Not to mention, he'd then presumably have to drill and blind tap for the turnbuckle, which is a lot more difficult than welding in a threaded bung.

That looks like an on the car adjustable front control arm to me.

This. Pull back the rubber boot on the master and slave. If either leaks, replace them both.

Control arm failure? There is something you don't hear everyday. Whats the story there?

Because Mikunis only have 3 different tubes, and only one is supposed to be good for race cars. Webers have many different options.

If you build a steel wheel for strength it will end up being very heavy. Cop cars don't use spun shells on their wheels, they use heavy steel wheels. Racing steel wheels are usually .095" thick and they don't tolerate a lot of abuse. If you haven't ever seen it before, metal spinning is a real trip: