JMortensen

There is a factory spec, and I believe it is 1/2 of a bottle, which is like 2 oz if you're using Ford stuff. FWIW, I've always run a whole tube/bottle/whatever, and then if the diff still chatters, add more until it stops. I've had customers with Eaton diffs that had all metal clutches and extra stiff springs that needed 3 bottles to keep the thing from chattering.

Got it. Thanks again.

No problem, not like this was an emergency or anything. Thanks again for the figures. So I figure if I calculate a 47.5 x 7 rectangle and a 52 x 18 and add them together, that gets me in the ballpark. Looks like that is 1268.5 sq in... That is a large area of 8.8 sq ft!

I'll email it to you.

I basically want the area of the top in sq in. Doesn't have to be exact, just ball park. 60 inches by 12 inches at the wide part with the narrow part being 40x10 or something like that would be fine. Thanks!

I would like to know (approximately) the size of a whale tail's top surface. If you have one and can run a tape measure on it, I'd appreciate the opportunity to satisfy my curiosity.

Lift is not linear, it is a function of velocity squared, so it is exponential. Formula here: http://wright.nasa.gov/airplane/lifteq.html Does anyone actually have a whale tail in hand? I am trying to figure something out and wondering if anyone can give me a rough idea of the area of a 240Z whale tail as viewed from above.

Choppers have tons of positive caster.

That is odd, because when you increase caster you make it so that you are literally lifting the front end of the car when you turn the wheel. When you add caster on most cars, some part of the turning is used to move the car vertically. To make the point, imagine if you had a really ridiculous motorcycle that had the front fork mounted straight up and down, 0 caster. The wheel wouldn't lean at all when you turned it, it would simply pivot to the left or the right. Now imagine a similarly stupid chopper that had 90 degrees of caster, with the handlebars at the front hub height. If you turned the front tire, it would just lean, it wouldn't actually turn. Now imagine that the chopper had a rectangular profiled tire instead of a traditional rounded motorcycle tire. When you turn the wheel, you're putting that rectangle on its corner, and this makes the rectangle taller than it would be if it were flat. You are actually lifting the front end by turning the wheel. That's a kind of crappy example, so I'll use what's handy to make the point. I have a soda can in front of me on my desk. It looks to be about 4 7/8" tall. If I tip it on the corner, I can manage to measure about 5 1/4" tall. Roughly estimating, that lift tops out at about 20 degrees, then goes back down. So similarly, a rectangular-ish tire is going to get taller as you lean it over until about 20 degrees of lean, then it will get shorter again. When you turn the wheel of the car and it leans over, you are literally lifting the weight of the front of the car in the same way. People (I think Coffey is among them) have put a car on scales, turned the wheel and looked at the weight changes on each corner.

Pretty sure they're all snap in on the R200.

Yes. You are seeing the bump steer when you jack the car up. There is camber thrust which is close to equal when the car is going straight. When you turn, the weight transfers to the outside, and the camber thrust from that side becomes dominant. If you have negative camber, the camber thrust is pushing the car in the correct direction to continue the turn. Not sure I follow you with the toe bit. I don't think the goal should be to counter the camber thrust, the goal with the toe setting should be to affect the way the car turns in, and this in large part has to do with the angle of the inside tire when initiating the turn. Parallel steer means that the wheels turn at the same angle. If the left wheel turns 20 degrees, the right wheel turns 20 degrees. Z's do not have parallel steer, much to my surprise. Kind of. You get the improved turn in with toe out, but it's a fixed setting and isn't progressive like Ackerman is. In the case of a Z you'd have to have an unreasonable amount of static toe out to maintain an Ackermann type of effect during a sharp corner at an autox, for example. So you get the Ackerman effect at first, but then that effect trails off and even with an aggressive toe out setting it turns into an AA effect in a very sharp turn. Increasing caster increases Ackerman in a Z.

My understanding from reading that stuff is that the speculators leased the track from the German govt. So if it reverts back to the govt, I just don't see them closing it down for no reason. Seems like what should happen is that the amusement park goes bankrupt and gets sold piecemeal and the track keeps on doing what it was doing, assuming the track can pay for itself.

It's been a while, but I would swear that the last one I did had a shoulder to bottom on. Could be I'm remembering wrong. Regardless, I think what matters is that the seal bottoms (I say this because I didn't bottom the seal and it dragged on the backside of the companion flange). I'm nearly positive the housing has a groove in it for the seal becaues you can see it in the FSM. I think if you get the position of the ball bearing slightly wrong, it will adjust itself out when you crank down on the pinion nut. I checked a 72, 78, and 87 FSM (thanks for the links Kyle) and found no spec on ball bearing depth. So basically, I'd push it in until the race is flush with the lip for the pinion seal if that is the only machined surface to gauge depth off of. BTW pinion bearing preload is set by the spacer between the two tapered bearings, not the spacer between the front tapered bearing and the ball bearing.

I haven't been able to figure this out. I've asked a couple times in different places, nobody seems to know WTF is really going on. What I see when I look at savethering.org is a description of some speculators who leased the ring from the German govt and tried to turn a historic racetrack in an out of the way location into a theme park and built it many times larger than the crowds that come will support. From what I can tell after that, it looks like if the investors default on it, then it goes back into the possession of the German government. So I guess what I'm wondering is, why do I want to save a bunch of ******* investors who made really really bad business decisions? Is this save the ring movement like Citibank starting www.savethebank.org? I feel like I'm not getting this right, but nobody has been able to straighten me out so far. I'd love to drive the track someday, but I'm not particularly interested in rescuing some idiots from their own bad decision making.

Wow.

Nevermind.

Doesn't work that way. Think of the control arm as the pivot to pivot. We know where the inner pivot is. If you put a spacer under the ball joint, you haven't moved the outer pivot, you've basically just "bent" the control arm further (the line between the ball joint and inner pivot is further from being perfectly straight, but the pivots have not moved).

Turbo 4's are back in 2013 IIRC. Somehow I doubt we'll see 4 digit hp numbers though.

Sorry, I read Tyler's reply and thought it was from you. Any ideas on what such a spacer would look like? I'm not able to picture this in my mind and not have it be just like a standard bumpsteer spacer. If you put the spacer between the control arm and the ball joint, it would do the same thing as the regular bumpsteer spacer; change the roll center but it wouldn't change the actual pivot points on the outboard end. [EDIT--Actually it wouldn't even do that, because the pivots would be in the same place. It would make no difference at all.] What matters is the location of the ball joint relative to the tie rod, so what you would need is a spacer between the ball joint and the steer knuckle (or a bent steer knuckle). I just don't see a way to do a spacer there unless you modified the steer knuckle to take a ball joint with a larger shank and put a spacer in between to take up the space. I'm sure you could have the steer knuckles bent, I know Design Products racing does that for 510's to correct bumpsteer. The problem is knowing how much change you need. That's why I like slotting the crossmember, because you can then adjust however much is necessary to minimize the bump steer. For a crude idea of anti dive, you can just look at the TC pivot to the ball joint. If this imaginary line points up from the TC to the ball joint, you have some anti. If it is level, you're neutral, if it points up, you have some pro-dive. You want them level or slightly down, I think a lot of really lowered Z's have pro-dive. I know mine did.

Read the bumpsteer FAQ post, it should help. Although it is called a bumpsteer spacer, what that spacer does is change what part of the bumpsteer curve the car is in. It's better described as a roll center corrector. That particular one also adds negative camber, but you can get bumpsteer spacers from MSA and elsewhere that don't affect camber. If you want to use a spacer, what you need to do is get a bumpsteer spacer kit for the tie rod, and then either ream the steer knuckle to fit the kit with a tapered pin, or drill the steer knuckle to accept a 5/8" bolt. All of this is in the FAQ post.

Not a fan of these on the front because they don't really allow for the control arm to swing in an arc as viewed from the side. That stress that is put into the system is probably taken by the crossmember flexing, and while they do work, it's just not the optimal solution. Also if you have a bent chassis and need to adjust one side differently than the other you end up with different bumpsteer on each side and the suspension is likely out of square. They do work and they are a cheap and easy solution, but I think there are better ways to fix camber inequality. I'd sooner slot the strut tower holes, for instance. It is much more crude, but doesn't negatively affect all the other suspension geometry. If you really want more neg camber, they don't offer much, I think only 1 degree, so from that perspective a set of longer control arms or camber plates or both makes more sense.

Pretty sure it uses a Suspension Techniques rear bar, definitely not a front mounted bar flipped around.

Who is that advice really for? How many people in the world are doing land speed racing in a Z and trying to decide whether to add ballast to the spare tire well or put an aero device on their car Tony? Ten? Five? Less? In realistic terms, what is allowed in a given racing class is probably severely limited, and only within the narrow confines of what can be done does one have to weigh drag and downforce. The end result is usually that everyone will run the biggest aero device they can within the confines of the rules. Streamlining left automobile road racing in the 1950's for a reason. That's not a mistake, and it comes from the fact that cars with downforce can turn faster than cars without, and that is because downforce gives the traction of ballast without having to manage the weight of ballast in the turns. If you're racing is done in a straight line and you're power limited, then what works best will probably be less drag. Even in a straight line, without power limitations, downforce is a good idea. Funny cars make 14,000 lbs of downforce at 320 mph. If your racing is done on a course with turns, you should use downforce (or more likely minimize lift to the greatest degree possible) to add traction, and ballast should only be a tool used to come up to minimum weight in the most advantageous way possible. Adjustable aero is great. Unfortunately it is also banned in almost every class of racing. So if you have it available and have the means to make your spoiler or wing adjustable, go for it. But you probably won't. Again, I think it's best to focus on real world situations. In most of those that involve Hybrid Z members who also aren't likely to sign up for the hp limited classes, the rule of thumb is going to be bigger is better. Need proof? Look at unlimited time trials cars. Not a streamliner in the bunch.

The risk of fire is bigger with the surge tank simply because the float bowls don't hold very much gas. If you're going to put it in the engine compartment I'd put it against the firewall and as inboard as possible (actually I'd put it as far forward and close to the middle in a rear mounted surge tank too). I don't think boost will be a big problem because the vent that goes to the crankcase is Teed into the PCV, so while the engine is running you should still have vacuum there, so long as you don't have a whole lot of blowby.

I got over the KERS thing when it was around in 2009. Toyota had some very interesting things to say about it at that time, you might want to look that up if you want more reasons to hate KERS. I couldn't believe what I was hearing when the wing rules were being described for this season, but F1 has a history of bizarre rule changes especially as of late. Last year was pretty good in terms of passing on track, etc, I didn't see a real need to change the rules to this extent. This wing thing is pretty hard to swallow. FWIW, the single best idea I've heard so far to make the racing and engineering modern, relevant in terms of improving road cars, and exciting would be to allow a gph limit on fuel burned and then allow any engine config and displacement the engineers could dream up. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that we would see some real advancements in efficiency if that were to happen, and they'd probably be much more applicable to road cars then setting the displacement and number of cylinders, etc.