JMortensen

45mm is the size of the hole coming OUT of the carb body. The cam is too small, both blocks will work but the L28 will give more power due to bigger displacement.

The main hoop doesn't need to stand straight up. I kicked the legs forward and leaned the hoop back for clearance. My hoop sits about 3/4" in front of the map bar light, so basically no headroom lost, and I can set the seat so far back that I can't press the clutch pedal all the way in (6' tall). So I think that would probably be enough clearance front to back for a guy your size. Sounds like your guy already got you squared away on headroom. I have to say, great welder or not, the fact that someone would build a 4 point roll bar like that at all makes me wonder about him. At the very least I would have him tell you what he is going to do before he does it next time. That roll bar is not good at all.

Unnecessary in my experience. In my last garage I even had a pretty badly sloped slab and the front stand would try to roll down the hill. Just put the handle in the back side of the engine stand, or if you're like me and you can't find it, weld a piece of scrap to the backside so that the bracket can't pull out of the stand. Either way, they just aren't going anywhere, even if they wanted to.

I think you have to be a redneck to put a whole lot of effort into making leaf springs handle. I only learned about them from a friend who is kinda redneck-y that I used to hang around with. He told me about a shop that could put them on my truck after I started autoxing, and I went for it. The shop built circle track cars (surprise). If you do some searching online you'll find some really good tech articles on leaf springs and angles and all sorts of funky stuff, but it's all circle track stuff. If you do go for it, get the ones with the bearings, not the bolts that slide on the frame or the plastic bushing type. I tried the bolts first and basically the suspension action just saws the bolts and they don't move very freely. The bearings work great and last forever, and I was amazed at how little stiction there was in the suspension. You could put a couple lbs of pressure on the tailgate and see the suspension move, and it didn't just suddenly jerk, it moved freely, if ever so slightly. They locate the rear as well, almost like putting a panhard bar on a 4 link. If the axle wants to move laterally with these installed, it has to literally bend the springs sideways. They locate the axle laterally much better than shackles with big compliant bushings which just fall over in a corner. The sliders also stopped the horrible nosedive under braking. In fact, do that test. Slam on the brakes a couple times, put the sliders on, and do it again. The difference is amazing. With the sliders, only the front moves down. The rear doesn't come up at all.

They replace the shackles on the leaf springs. They really reduce friction in the suspension and they don't roll over like shackles do in corners, nor do they stand up like shackles do under braking. It may lower the ride a bit, that kinda depends on the shackle length and angle. Really makes leaf springs work good.

The problem with lowering a 510 wagon is that the axle doesn't have a lot of clearance under the rear floor. While it might be possible to section the floor and raise it up, is it worth the hassle? I have a couple friends who autoxed a wagon for years and had fun with it, but it wasn't competitive against the sedans. If the goal is to make it handle, I'd suggest some sliders for the leaf springs in the back. I suggested this to my friends and they never did it, but I had these things on a 2WD Toy pickup truck and it handled pretty bitchin, was good for about top 30 at my local autox which usually had about 80 cars. I even had mine on a set of weight jacks, so I could have corner weighted my truck accurately if I had access to scales. https://www.circletracksupply.com/product.php?productid=815

Seems like bad form to me to post on a thread 7 pages long questioning the point of the thread, especially when there are other threads about putting 240SX suspension and SLA in these cars already and the question "why don't people focus on the rear suspension as much as the front" has come up probably 3 times in the last couple years.

Congrats on the class win and not hitting the wall.

I would suggest forgetting about the slide hammer. If you have an air hammer, I'd use the pointy tip and put it on the dimple on the backside of the stub axle and push it out, and if you don't I'd do like ModernS30 suggested and use a center punch on the dimple and a BFH. If you do rent a slide hammer, you need the puller tip which would look a lot like a pulley puller. I just don't think it will be significantly easier to do that way vs the punch and the BFH or the air hammer.

Didn't Ross sell a pattern at one time that a person could use to redrill the axle? It slid over the pilot and one stud and then you could mark exactly where to drill the other 4 holes? With a pattern and a decent drill press and vise I think it would be pretty easy. Don't forget to cut the peened area of the stub axle nut off before removing them otherwise you'll waste the threads.

I don't think 4 valves or 2 valves has as much to do with torque as the cam. You can have higher port velocities with a 4 valve head, but if you have a cam that breathes well at higher rpm it's going to open the valve farther, reducing the port velocity and it's not going to have much torque. Likewise you can have lower port velocities with a smaller cam and a 2 valve head and it won't breathe as well up high but it will have a lot of torque. What would work best would be adjustable valve lift so that you could have low lift and duration at low rpms and high lift and long duration at high rpms. I know they have experimented with electrostatic valves, but I haven't heard anything lately on that front, but that's the holy grail of valve operation IMO. If it were possible to program whatever lift and duration at whatever throttle position and load is present at the time, then I think you'd see a real revolution in the internal combustion engine. It may be true that 4 valves is better than two, but I don't think the 4 valve head is so far superior that "we'd be making some serious power" with one but we can't with a 2V head. Just look at some of the threads on max hp. You'll see things like Electromotive getting 1100 hp out of the L engine with a 2 valve head back in the early 80s. Maybe you could get more with a 4 valve head, but at some point it's going to be more of a hindrance than a help to overall speed unless you're talking about drag racing on wrinkle wall slicks, and then you have much better engine choices than the L, regardless of what head you put on it.

If the intent is to run 5 lug you can get there by redrilling the stock stub axle at basically no cost. If custom brake brackets are too much hassle for somebody, then I wonder how that person justifies retrofitting an entire suspension system from a different car or designing and fabricating a new suspension. Bolting on brackets is relatively easy. If you look at the 240SX rear brakes, they're nothing to write home about, so those would need further upgrades to keep up with a Wilwood type system that is commonly used on the stock strut. I think the Skylines used the same brakes as the 300ZX, again, I think judging by piston size, rotor diameter, and pad size the common Wilwood setups are bigger. The stock Z rear suspension's main limitation is the H arm IMO, and the arms that have come out of this thread have addressed that problem. The stock system has some pretty big advantages over 240SX or Skyline rear suspensions. It weighs a lot less and has no dynamic toe change, and again with the arms in this thread the issue of bushing deflection has been eliminated. If you really wanted to change to something else, I would be inclined to go SLA suspension instead of 5 link, but that is quite a big project in relation to making a new control arm or drilling the stub axle and bolting on bigger brakes. If you have a better system from a different car from another manufacturer that is easy to retrofit, by all means post all about it and people will start doing that. Right now it seems like your only point is to **** up this thread.

One thought keeps rolling around in the back of that hollow cavernous cranium of mine. I keep thinking that by putting the bolts through the monoball and screwing into the arm on the inner joints, I essentially have the arms mounted in single shear. It's "double single shear" since the arms have a bolt on each end, but I'm now wondering if I should drill the threaded bungs out, cut the heads off of the bolts and slide them in backwards and use nuts on the outer ends. Wouldn't take that long to do. On the other hand, the stock arm had a tin walled tube with threading cut into it and I have a 5/8" grade 8 bolt so maybe I shouldn't worry about it.

If Sebastian Loeb made this video it would have been 5 minutes and 15 seconds long.

Why?

I ran one with the R200, but not with CV's. No pictures, but basically you have to drill holes on either side of the frame rail in the back and then install the brackets through the floor. Don't overtighten the bolts because you can crush the frame rail. On my lowered car I had issues with the bar hitting the frame and the end link lengths as well. I would suggest if you're not married to that one you check out the Suspension Techniques rear bar. It really is a better design IMO and it's much easier to get at the driveshaft bolts with the ST bar.

I've got suspension parts on my car, not a problem, just gets harder and harder to spin as the weight balance changes. That can be solved with a counter weight if necessary. I'll just manhandle it around. What is a problem is body parts. my car barely clears to spin all the way around, if I had flares mounted they would hit the stands for sure. Even a ZG flare would not clear. It can be tough to remember to be careful when flipping the car with body parts on.

Thanks guys, I'll check out the different harness options and the Deka batteries. I've heard plenty of horror stories from Ford owners about the g switch cutting off the fuel pump and I'm going to be running really stiff springs with less than standard rebound valving, so I don't think I'll take that piece of advice. Sounds good, thanks. Wiper, ignition, starter, fuel pump, fan, brake lights, whatever electrical gauges... uh... ??? Warning lights maybe??? No headlights, turnsignals, etc. For autox which I will be doing for a while after getting it running, they don't check anything with regards to wiring. I used to run the tech all the time, never ever looked at wiring. Much appreciated Dave. Got a lead on good switches, if I make my own panel?

I would agree, but having bought the rear flares from Brian, they are really incredibly good as far as the surface goes. The gel coat is almost passable for paint AND they're cheap. Problem with them for a lot of people is that they're almost too wide.

Ready to start gathering parts for my car, LSx engined autox car, trailer queen, just basic basic electrical. I am a moron when it comes to electricity, so I have a friend who I traded parts to and he has agreed to help in return. Right now though I'm just trying to get parts together. So far I figure I need: Battery and mount - thinking something small like a PC 680. Wiring hardness - thinking 8 circuit Painless or similar Switch panel - saw the Painless was $200+ that seems expensive, have seen other switches from Jegs and Joes which are other options Kill switch - I think I need the 4 post kind, not sure on this Battery cables. Need to get something big enough to handle the battery behind the pass seat and fire up the motor without burning up. That's pretty much it. I know there are other options out there for harnesses and batteries, etc, so I'm asking for recommendations. Also was thinking about doing a bulkhead type connector in the firewall and read somewhere that they are a bad idea because in an accident the cable can get pulled out. The suggestion was to just run a long cable through to the engine compartment. Was also considering re-using my 240SX lower rad hose thermostat for fan. I'd rather have the thing come on by itself, and it did work flawlessly for me for years. I gather it's better to have the kill switch within reach of the driver, but then is it better to put it in the middle of the car, or on the A pillar? Feedback on these or any other issues that I am probably totally ignorant of would be appreciated.

www.zccjdm.com has cheaper huge flares. I think they're 2" wider than the RR flares. Nice parts too. Good finish.

I was looking at struts some time ago and ran into something that said that the WRX inserts were close to or the same size as the S30. I never followed up on it, but you may be able to adapt Subaru struts on the Z as it is.

I believe those are the Victoria British/Black Dragon steel flares. They only really give you about an inch more clearance than a regular fender. You might start by seeing what size wheel you want to run and then pick a flare that works for the wheel.

Caster affects camber when the wheels turn, but I think that effect is totally independent of how the camber is manipulated, eg if you had camber set via plates on the strut top, longer LCA's, or the camber bolts, the camber change would be the same when you turn the wheel, because it is a result of the caster.

Brakes get really hot, I would imagine any lube is going to melt and run off.