JMortensen

The KERS system they allowed wasn't advanced enough to require any innovation. It could only be used for a couple seconds a lap. Again, let them make the BEST damn KERS system possible and then you'll get some innovation. Toyota had a much more developed KERS system on their Supra used in JCTC. From: http://www.totalf1.com/full_story/view/270408/Toyota_KERS_development_update/

I was rooting for Carwin. He was dominating in the first, they probably could have stopped it and not heard too much complaining about it. Got sucked into an arm triangle in the second. Still by far the best competitor for Lesnar to date.

Go rent UFC 1- about 6. I recall one japanese dude just WHALING on another dude's nuts. Repeated uppercuts to the pills. I think that was in UFC 3. I haven't watched those in a long time. Dan Severn times were pretty interesting. I think that was like UFC 6 or so. Crazy...

Seems easier to grind down the shift fork, especially if it is just .010" or .020".

I see that now. I should practice reading THE WHOLE thread.

Uh... weird. I am quite positive that I reused the stock little hard line with my non-vented 4x4 calipers. I bent one side up trying to get it off of the stock caliper so I actually made a new one and then kept using it on a stock caliper when I found that I had way too much front bias with the big calipers.

Hmm. I was thinking I'd have to reinforce it more like Coffey's tow hook on the ROD. I was even thinking of angling the eyelet so that it got pulled on radially so it wouldn't bend. I guess a hook like that doesn't bend when you tighten down the straps? What is the thickness? Mine are 3/16".

Suspension travel is determined by the strut travel. The only way the spring determines the travel is if it coil binds. Shorter springs would fix the too high problem, but they wouldn't change the fact that the coilovers were installed in the cheesiest way possible. One of the main benefits to these parts is that they allow extra clearance for larger wheels. With the shock perches still on the strut tube, you've lost that advantage.

I was looking for pics of your tow hooks that you use to tie the car down.

I'm still seeing studs inserted into the arms and welded as a potential fix here. I believe the hole is just about perfect for a 3/4" stud. The majority of the threaded portion of the arm would be cut off (assuming the threads aren't ridiculously deep into the arm) and if you're using stock bushings you might just need a bushing between the stud and the poly bushing sleeve, or better yet follow in Terry's footsteps and make it a full monoball setup as I linked to before. As far as a better mousetrap, I believe I have one, although you'd have to build your own. It eliminates a lot of the potential for side loading the strut, and I think should be stronger. I haven't actually used mine yet, but I am pretty happy with what I have and think it's superior to everything else that I've seen to date, in design if not manufacturing. I can't claim to keep up with John or Monzter in terms of fab skills. Here is a long discussion that led to my arm design, or you can just skip to the end and work backwards, there a pictures on the last page. http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php?/topic/62776-yet-another-rear-control-arm-design/page__pid__848922__st__120#entry848922

Got pics of that Cary? I'd like to see if my plans match what you've actually implemented.

I think that's the general consensus Richard. I recall Coffey telling the story of a BMW that was on a trailer with the wheels tied down and went through a road like Pearblossom Hwy or something (short rolling hills as far as the eye can see) and when they got to the destination the strut had punched through the tower. I think the idea is that the trailer oscillates and the car oscillates, and if those two oscillations line up perfectly you get a pretty sharp impact on the chassis. We're getting into thread jack territory, but I got some tow hooks from www.zccjdm.com and my plan is to modify and strengthen them and then to tie the car down on the trailer directly to the tow hooks. Added benefit is that you don't have to climb around under the car to hook to suspension. Suspension is probably stronger than a tow hook but still leaves the chassis less restricted. Maybe Coffey will retell the story and/or break this issue out into another thread.

Very interesting point. I don't think it's that exactly though; just look at all of the arms that are made with threaded tube ends, and failure at the weld isn't something that I've seen a lot of.. I could see it being a combo of thin wall with thread cutting and then maybe the welding on the outside and the resultant heat affected zone. I wonder if those arms are heat treated, and if not if having them heat treated would prevent another failure. Here are some links on fabrication and heat treating. The second link points out that standard DOM does not need heat treating after welding, and shows a HAZ failure which occurred 4-6 mm from the weld. http://www.netwelding.com/Heat_Treated_4130.htm http://www.formulastudent.de/public-relations/fsg-news/news-details/article/pats-column-space-frame-chassis/

Re: rust, there was a bit of discussion in that other thread, which I've located for you: http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php?showtopic=57264

viperredls1z broke one of those arms, and then if I recall he fixed it and broke it again. The similarities between Dave's car and Mark's are that they both have big power and big wheels and tires. I don't think I've heard of a "more normal" Z breaking one of the AZC arms. Mark, it seems like the problem is the stress risers created by threading a relatively thin walled tube and then putting a bending moment on it with a pivot point essentially right at the threaded area. On my arms I used a .120 wall tube and then inserted a threaded tube end into the thicker wall tube, so that might be an idea for you. You might also look into what Terry did with his arms, as I seem to recall that he had studs sticking out of the tube and nuts on the end. If you do it like he did you can get heims jointed inner pivots as well. Might be able to mod what you have there. http://www.fototime....B95FCD9B5}&nt=a

Tires are a better fit on the wheels than most "stretched" "aggressive" cars. Not sure how much suspension motion you're going to have before that tire hits the rear flare. Did you read 240hoke's "How to Install Them ZG Flares" thread? Looks like yours are a couple inches low.

Beating a dead horse here, but seriously... WTF? Really? Read my earlier post again? This wasn't clear enough? Regardless, I'll stop here. I think I broke my dead horse beatin' stick.

F1 rules are just mind-boggling in their lameness. You can't use the thing that makes you faster in the first laps of the race, and you can't use it if you're in front? LAME. IMO they need to take a much different tack if they want more competitive racing. They need to open up the rules. Found this idea on another forum, but I like it a lot. Instead of having engines that are built to a formula and then sealed, they should have open regs regarding engine construction. No limits on displacement, or pistons or even that the engine has to have pistons. Instead they should substitute a fuel metering rule. So many liters per hour, and that's it. Let the engineers do something useful instead of spending thousands of hours trying to whittle .25 seconds off of a lap by tweaking the car to fit a tight ruleset. If the cars get too fast, cut the fuel flow. If they did this I expect that you might see more of the F1 technology passed down to street cars. I can't point to many things we've gotten from F1 lately aside from carbon fiber brakes, and they're only on hypercars. If a team could make a really efficient engine that makes a lot of power, I think that a toned down variant would be instantly marketable to the public, where a 2.4L V8 that spins 19,000 rpm really isn't.

Again, context. Big difference in moving a stock cam a couple degrees vs using another stock cam that is already relatively retarded? Or big difference comparing stock cam to an aftermarket cam? Or big difference timing a cam that is better optimized for the job at hand (whether that be mileage, low end torque, hp, etc) and getting the most from it? I think you'll get much more out of swapping in a much larger than stock regrind than you will out of changing the timing on a stock cam a couple of degrees. Degreeing the bigger cam is what should be done, and don't waste time swapping in a smaller cam or retarding a stocker. My point with the cam gear was that you could probably swap the gear alone and get similar results to going to the early cam with a lot less labor, not that changing cam timing doesn't make a big difference. Context helps. I feel like we're going round and round here. If you think that swapping in an early cam is going to produce a power increase larger than raising the compression from 8.3 to 9.8, I'll just say that I think you're wrong. You bashed the P79 as the wrong head to start with. For most people and the motors they build, I think you're wrong. As far as what to do to make more power, there are many ideas about that and an infinite number of solutions to getting more power.

Big difference? By whose determination? Again, not enough to take the time to swap them out, IMO. I haven't priced out an adjustable cam gear lately. If they were ~$100 I'd be curious to try that route. You really should have one to set the cam per the cam card with your regrind anyway.

If the cam grinder will grind the drilled cam, I'd do that one. Then you can run spray bar and internal oiling, which shouldn't be a problem with a turbo pump. Again, that's what I should have done. Check the brazing on your spray bar and make sure it's not coming apart before you run it though. Tony, re swapping the A cam in, wouldn't it be easier just to use the later cam, get an adjustable cam gear and retard the cam a degree or two? With the lift and duration being damn near identical, I bet the result would be damn near identical Then you don't even need to take the cam out of the head.

www.mcmaster.com part #6679K14

I am going to disagree again and say that the P79 is fine unless you're doing a serious all out build. If you are, then yeah, junk it and start with something that doesn't have liners. But for the vast majority of weekend racers, they can shave it and do a mild port job and not run into the limitations of the head. I'm sure that the P79 would have been fine on my motor. I had very little time into the ports near the manifolds, and much more down in the bowls and in the chambers themselves. And it would have run on pump gas with the lower compression. Hindsight is 20/20 I guess... EDIT- I do like the Aluma-Seal suggestion. It works well IME. Only person I've seen with a problem was a friend who used it several times a week to seal a bad radiator on a diesel rabbit for several months. He eventually blew the headgasket, and although it's tough to be certain, the several lbs of Aluma-Seal that went into it might have had something to do with it...

Tony, did someone steal your computer? Not following your logic at all. All of the stock cams were tiny. Swapping out an early cam isn't worth the effort IMO. I can't tell you what the difference will be before and after, but I would imagine that the compression bump would outperform the measly cam improvement. Compression bump with a decent regrind, now you're talking. I'm just surprised to hear anyone knowledgeable talk about a stock to stock cam swap as if it were a worthwhile expenditure of time and effort. They're all puny, even the lauded "C" cam. Not sure what to make of the cut head/piston comment either. I believe the P90 chamber is deeper to start with, which is why they used shorter valves to keep the valve geometry the same. So cutting it isn't going to really make it radically different anyway, would certainly have less of an effect than cutting an E31 or an N42. Regardless of the head, if you're going for really high compression where the pistons pop up inside the chamber the pistons will have to be modified to fit the chamber. You get to the point where everything has to be checked and clearanced pretty fast. Maybe there is a point in there around 12:1 where you can use an off the shelf dome piston, I don't know, but I certainly wouldn't use it without checking and clearancing the piston as necessary. I seem to remember my buddy had to cut on his Venolias for his L18 build at about that compression ratio. If you're not going for really high compression, cutting the head gets around 10:1 IIRC, which is pretty good for a pump gas L series. According to this calculator (who knows how good it is) you'll get a 5% increase by changing from 8.3 compression to 9.8. I ***think*** that's the bump you get from the shave .080 mod. I would fall out of my chair if you got a 5% increase in power from swapping from any stock Z cam to any stock Z cam (exclude turbo). http://www.camaroz28...s/crchange.html

I'm pretty sure that is going to be it for me. 15x14 with 5" backspacing and a 15x12 on the front, probably with 4.5 or 5" backspace also. I have to figure out flares in the front, I wanted something a bit different than the kit offered so it looks like I'll be making and/or modifying a flare to do what I want. I'll be running Hoosier slicks in a 15x13 rear and 15x12 front.