JMortensen
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Posts posted by JMortensen
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Sure, separating the flow entirely would work too. I wouldn't put it right at the air dam though. Oil is a surprisingly big fire hazard, so I'd set it back and keep your frame work out in front to protect it. You don't need that much open space to cool the car either, I'd block the top grill entirely (with black material recessed a bit if you don't want it obviously blocked off, and then split the opening at the bottom to feed both the rad and the oil cooler.
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I would build a duct from the front bodywork to the rad to force all the air that goes in to pass through the radiators, and then put the oil cooler on the backside of the rad. That's how I did mine after emailing with one of the oil cooler companies about it. Can't remember which company I was talking to (C&R?), but the idea was that the oil gets hotter than the coolant, so you want coolant first. They also steered me away from a rad/oil heat exchanger.
The main point I got out of it was that the bigger the temp difference the better it will cool, so by putting your oil first you're raising the temp of the cooling air hitting the rad rendering it less effective, and done the other way there will still be a significant difference between the air exiting the rad and the hotter oil, so it will still have enough capability to cool the oil, assuming all the rads are sufficient size, and it looks like that's not a problem. -
If I ever redo my headers I'm going Tri-Y out to the side pipes. Looks good! Did you dyno with the previous ones? Would be curious to see numbers on both.
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Forgot to mention, the problem you run into with adjustable LCAs is running out of threads on the tie rods. If you go to a turnbuckle style you can make it a little longer to start with and then you're length adjustments are split between both sides, instead of all the adjustment happening on the inside as it works stock.
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I drilled the knuckles out to 5/8 and used a bolt. Originally I was planning on using the stock rack and so I made my own tie rods by cutting the ends off of a stock set and welding them to a swaged 5/8 steel circle track tie rod. Wasn't hard. If you do this just order a really long one and cut in half and use the LH threaded side with the RH threaded stock end and vice versa.
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It's Jon, but everyone does that.
You don't need a spacer in front. Adding one doesn't change geometry, it will just reduce available bump travel, and gaining some travel is really the main point of sectioning struts.
You will need a spacer in back. The rear strut housing should be 2" longer than front on a 240, 3" on a 280. If you don't have a spacer in back, the suspension will be really extended as compared to the front. If the rear tops out too much you'll get a loss of traction.
The hub is below the strut tube, so adding length to it doesn't change the roll center. If you want the roll center higher then you have to raise the inner pivot of the LCA, or lower it on the outboard end, or both.
You will then need to fix the bumpsteer, as changing just the LCA angle will screw up bumpsteer. To change the bumpsteer you can raise the rack or lower the outer tie rod, or both. -
Welcome Joe!
If you're going to modify the 72, this is a good place to ask questions before buying parts.
My first Z was an orange 72 auto. I'm still not over getting rear ended in that car, which I bought from the original owner in '93 or '94. Loved that car and had all the parts to do a manual swap ready to go.
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Leaving a gap on super thin sheet sounds like a recipe for blowing holes to me.
I butt them up tight and then use low heat and let the weld pool sit there a little longer. Usually get a little bit of protrusion on the backside, so I have no fears about penetration. The brake duct might not be a perfect comparison as the tube is a little thicker, but in the second one you can see the side that was welded (around the tube) and the backside where I welded a stiffening flange around the edge of the backing plate. -
Not sure why you felt the need to repost the same question in the FAQ area, but nobody can answer it there. Answers have to be approved by moderators. Plus it's not exactly a frequently asked question.
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I don't believe they made a 2 pinion LSD for the R200. Only one I know of that isn't 4 pinion off the top of my head is R160, and that's a 3 pinion IIRC. Pull the cover off and count the cross pins to be sure. Would be interesting anyway just to see if it has the more aggressive ramps or the less aggressive ones. The bottom is the less aggressive.
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Laguna Seca has nasty noise restrictions and walls just about all the way around the track. If you look up "muffler Laguna Seca" you'll find a bunch of weird shit like this, which I've heard people refer to as "donkey dicks." Apparently the idea is to get more muffler on the car, and then point the exhaust away from the sound meter. The corkscrew looks fun, but after doing it a ton on sims I don't think I'd bother with the hassles to get out there, YMMV.
Way further south (just north of LA), but your car would KICK ASS at Streets of Willow, which is a very tight road course. I think top speed I ever saw there going down the hill was 105 mph or so. It is so twisty you wouldn't feel like the lack of power was that big a hindrance. Would also be interesting to see how a well set up Prepared autoxer would relate to Coffey's ROD with sequential gearbox and all of that. IIRC he ran a 1:28 at Willow Springs. Big Willow and Streets are two tracks at the same site. The big track is much faster. -
Looking good!
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There is another thread with a guy getting screwed by Whitehead. I'd try any of the others. I've never bought from him, but Joe @ modern-motorsports.com seems like a straight shooter.
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Ah, the Dial-O-Matic! Twist the knob to set how much fingertip to remove!
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I was in one of the informercials for the Popeil Pasta Maker for about 5 seconds. I believe my quote was: "It makes the best mac and cheese you've EVER had!" BTW those are shot in his house. They roll bleachers into his living room and point them at his kitchen. No shit. Big house. Beverly Hills. Crowd at the time was people who owned other Popeil products. They had some spaces in the bleachers and didn't have people to fill, so they called our office and I think about 10 or 15 of us went down to fill in the holes.
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18 hours ago, NewZed said:
Edited - the credit card charge challenging process requires oversight. I don't think that it's a given that the consumer always gets their money back. It's a process.
If it was a U.S. business you could sue them in small claims court, report them to the attorney general in the state they are registered in, and also report them to the Better Business Bureau. Those are all remedies/actions for the consumer to take against companies that do not fulfill their obligations. Which is what Whitehead is doing here. But they're in Canada and the US Attorney General's office has a lot of other things going on right now.
To be clear, I'm not defending Whitehead at all here, but the credit card companies DO take the money from the merchant and give it back to the customer FIRST. At that point the merchant has to prove that they shipped a product, that it was the right product, that it was shipped to the right address, etc. Almost all of my chargebacks (I get about 10 a year now) are for unauthorized purchase. Somebody steals a credit card and places an order. I do my job and deliver to the address given. I never talk to the people or interact in any other way, but the cc companies say it's my fault for taking a fraudulent order. Some people seem to believe that the credit card company eats this fraud. No. Merchants do.
I say this as a guy with literally decades of experience: one of my first jobs was working for Ronco (the "It slices, it dices" and "Set it and forget it" company - Ron Popeil is the father of the infomercial) and my job there for the last year or so was answering chargebacks. It was a 40hr/week job, which says something about the quality of the food dehydrator he was hawking at the time. Then I went to a merchant services company called Cardservice International, where I monitored chargebacks coming in to merchant accounts and withheld money from them until we could verify. They were a startup at the time and their business was centered around providing merchant accounts to people who big banks wouldn't deal with. Small businesses and business owners with bad credit scores. I saw lots of fraud from the merchant side at that job. With the click of a mouse button I held $250K from a merchant's bank account, in 1995. Turned out I was right, they were scammers. Also caught a dentist's receptionist scamming her boss. How? I saw a refund. Who gets a REFUND from their dentist? Then I searched the card number and found a second one. The receptionist had taken her bf's cc to work, swiped it and issued a refund for $1276.39 or some nondescript amount like that. LOL.
Since then I had a couple jobs turning wrenches, but for the last 20 years it's been all mail order, where this chargeback thing is just part of life. Doesn't matter how scrupulous you are; there are identity thieves out there, and they won't hesitate to screw over a guy like me, who is just trying to make an honest living. Lately I've had quite a few scammers order the most expensive pet door that we sell, enter the correct billing and shipping address and then ship to some random person's house. The banks' theory is that they then just follow the tracking and stake out the house, and they go swipe the doggy door after UPS drops it at the porch. Sadly, I went about 10 years with maybe 1 or 2 chargebacks in the whole year, but in the last 5 years or so it's REALLY ramped up a lot, lost about $4K in Jan 2020 to fraud.
The right thing to do with Whitehead (assuming all the claims made here are true) is small claims if that works internationally, but even if you win, good luck collecting. Social media pressure is also a good tactic. -
18 hours ago, 260DET said:
The world is going mad, seriously, what a bummer. But I'd be pressuring the CC people, what has time got to do with a claim like this?
Think of it from the perspective of a business owner who gets victimized by the chargeback process:
You did a transaction with a crazy customer 6 months ago, now, months later, the merchant is informed that there has been a chargeback. Not only does the chargeback immediately take the money out of the merchant's account and return it to the customer, but it also puts a black mark on the merchant's record and costs $35 for the paperwork processing fee. Sometimes they do a dispute and then a chargeback. Double the fees, double the fun! After all this happens you are guilty until proven innocent at which point you can win back the money that you should rightfully have been paid.
You used to have 30 days to do this, now I think it's 90. The merchants are seriously bent over in this process, and it's all agreed to as part of the merchant services agreement with the bank. It's in the fine print, didn't you read it???
I'm not for people getting screwed on their transactions, but you have to realize it happens both ways. 90 days is more than enough time, IMO. -
I had to move the seat for helmet clearance on the halo bar.
The steering stuff is pretty common. I buy most of my stuff from www.colemanracing.com, speedwaymotors.com, jegs.com, or behrents.com. Betting they all have everything you need.
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My seat mount is about the same height as yours and I didn't feel any need to lower the wheel. It would be easy to raise/lower with a full race 3/4" column, just use jam nuts on either side of the rod end and move up and down. On mine I could shim down the wheel from the pedal box if I wanted to move it. I have a bunch of stuff on the to do list, that one has not come up. Related though, I did move the seat 1.5" to the right. Have thought of moving the column to the right to compensate, really don't notice when you're driving, but I still know it's wrong.
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17 hours ago, clarkspeed said:
Jon, I took another look at my camber plates tonight. I seem to remember previous versions of my GC camber plates did incorporate some sort of spring adjustment. Anyway, after reviewing the plates and the Mustang plates, I will add a "floating" spring perch to fit with the GC plates to compensate for spring alignment.
Curious to see what you come up with.
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Modded factory box.
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Looks a lot better!
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Tegris is not light. I have a COT splitter made of tegris, turned out too narrow for my front end, so it's just sitting in my shop. Pretty cool, but probably weighs as much if not more than plywood. If you just use it for the front lip and then do something else from the lip to the front xmember, that's a good one.
If you use plywood, it does matter what kind. Birch is supposed to be the stiffest, so that's what I used. It is heavy. I've seen lots of alumilite at autocrosses. Looks great until it touches the ground, then not so much.I decided on plywood to see where it rubbed and how bad, thinking that I could adjust things and then do a more expensive/less durable one after I worked out the bugs.
240z SCCA vintage race car, restoration
in S30 Series - 240z, 260z, 280z
Posted · Edited by JMortensen
Plus you can see my ex-boss from the Porsche shop I worked at 20+ years ago in there. Well, his hand, anyway. "Guy Ober squares the suspension on his race Pinto using a plumb bob." Something like that. LOL
Best thing I've seen on tuning race cars in a long while was about running sweeps. By sweeps I mean go too far one direction all the way to too far in the other direction, then find your happy setting. When I first started racing in the mid 90s, my roommate was a Nissan master tech who had been autocrossing for years. Among his pearls of wisdom were: "Never go bigger than a mild cam on an L series, because you'll lose bottom end" and "run about 1.5 degrees negative camber in the front, slightly more in the rear" and "V8s are too heavy and a Z won't turn with one." He had learned these rules from somewhere and parroted them exactly. I listened to him because I didn't know any better and he was the expert. Then Carl Beck's Z car email list started up and I got on it and people were running big cams and had V8 autocross cars with 3+ degrees of camber. He said: "You don't know who you're listening to when you get advice on the internet." That's true, at the time I didn't know John Coffey, Pete Paraska, Gary Savage, etc at the time, but man, were they right and he was wrong. Great to find out we were doing it wrong, but doing sweeps would have told me that without having to run into the right people.
Start with too little camber. Go run it. Keep adding neg camber until the inside is obviously too hot, then back it off to where it makes the tires happiest. If I had done that I would have found the answers years earlier and been a lot faster. A quick way to shorten this whole idea up would be to say: "If you haven't gone too far, you may not have gone far enough."
BTW that button clutch is hawt. I love my dual 7.25". Not very streetable, but man does my T56 shift fast with one.