JMortensen

Aim right at it. The bullet and the brick are equally affected by gravity. I think that's a tougher question for the person who already shoots a lot, especially skeet. You have to lead a skeet to get the pellets there at the same time that the skeet does, but you don't have to lead a falling object.

Let's say you're 200 yards away and want to shoot a falling target, say a brick, where should you aim?

I would run a stock tank and a surge tank. That setup costs an carby fuel pump and a can, which you can buy or make relatively easily and installation is going to be a hell of a lot easier than properly installing a cell. My fuel safe cell is very heavy too compared to a stock tank.

He means the seals in the wheel cylinders. Kind of an urban legend that I heard growing up that most/all drum setups use a valve incorporated in the master because if they didn't the seal would not have any mechanism to hold it's pressure against the wheel cylinder bores. As you drive vibrations would allow the fluid to slip past the wheel cylinder seal cups, creating a leak. With just a small amount of pressure you can force the seals against the inside of the cylinder and prevent such a leak. I have not verified this claim, nor have I seen anyone dig the part out of a disc/drum master to show it, but I did believe it existed for a long time. Now I'm not so sure. If you look up residual pressure valves (ala Wilwood or similar), they generally are sold as a cheater part that "fakes" a proper drum adjustment, and also as a device that prevents the fluid from flowing back out of the master if the master is mounted below the calipers or drums. Might be something that ITS guys should be looking at... http://www.wilwood.com/products/006-MasterCylinders/010-RPV/index.asp http://www.sachserodshop.com/pdf/55.pdf

Because if it was green we wouldn't know where to stop mowing the lawn. Either that or refraction though the water molecules in the air...

So far I've been told 650, but I think that sounds a bit strange because a 350 isn't that much bigger and most people say 750 for a 350. I realize the car will run on either, probably do fine either way, but I'm still up in the air about what is going to be the better choice.

Le Mans, 1983? 2 laps. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ST6xuxthw

Related question. On a 5.3L motor (325 ci) which will be cammed and will rev to 6250, dual plane manifold, shorties, etc. would it be best to run a 650 or 750 cfm carb?

Did you buy 4 clutches or 6? You shouldn't have had any left over if you got 4.

That sucks. In my defense of the way hours are billed I didn't mean to insinuate that every dealership and service writer and mechanic is on the up and up. That's obviously not the case. My Subaru dealer is very straightforward and professional, as is the GMC dealer I use. Here is my horror story: Once when looking to trade in a car at a Nissan dealer the service manager asked for my keys and registration in order to give the car a quick once over. Soon afterward they started in with the "how much can you afford a month" BS. I had walked in with a print out of the KBB trade in value for the car. I gave it to the salesman, he showed it to the sales manager and they literally drew a line through the trade in value and wrote in a new value about $5k lower underneath it with a sharpie. At this point I told them I there was no way in hell I was going to buy the car. They literally would not give me my keys back until I started yelling in the showroom and threatened to call the police. I doubt that place is under the same ownership as this was 10 years ago, but this was the Nissan dealer in Oxnard, CA. Nice to win one.

Correct. The book is a means of preparing an estimate, by assigning a VALUE (not a time) for the labor involved in the job. There really isn't too much difference here, except if the average customer walks into a shop and they have a sign on the wall that says the hourly labor charge is $150 they're more likely to turn around and leave than if it says $75/hr. So the better and faster you are at your job, the LESS money you make. I think your billing structure is retarded. You SHOULD get paid more for your knowledge, your skill, and you should recoup the money that you've put into buying tools that get the job done faster. You're right, it isn't a difficult concept. A job is worth X. When the job is completed, you should get paid X for that job. "Billable hours" does NOT equal actual hours. It equals the VALUE of the labor, not the actual time required to do that labor. Here is a construction example: I just tiled my shower and it took forever because it was the first time I had ever tiled anything and I was running my business while doing the tilework. According to your pricing schedule I got a high value tile job because it took many hours, but the truth is that the value of the job didn't change, but it took me longer than it should have to complete the job because I didn't know WTF I was doing, I was distracted, had to keep stepping away from it, etc. Profit is NOT built in by over-estimating the hours for the job. Profit is gained by outperforming the estimate, usually this happens through years of experience and tens of thousands of dollars invested in tools which help to get the job done faster. The fact that someone can outperform the estimate should not be to their detriment, and the fact that they make "make a profit off of you" should not be something you begrudge them. Businesses, workers, industries require profit to stay alive. So long as we seek their goods and services, profit is not a bad thing, in fact it is essential. We should all be GLAD to pay for good work and happy that we are keeping skilled people profitable so that they can continue to provide valuable services to the community.

That's not how I see it at all. If you're REALLY good and REALLY fast, you make a shitload LESS money per job if one follows your screwed up idea of how it should work. As said before, the rates generally come out of a book, most of the time the shop doesn't set hours for jobs. In the cases where the shop does set a price, it's an agreed price and your argument still falls on it's face. If you don't like the price for the service take the car elsewhere. As a guy who turned wrenches for a living for years I hope you find the slow, mediocre mechanic you're willing to pay for. The good ones deserve better.

I don't want to jack your thread, but have you looked into alternatives, like the Ron Tyler mount? If you buy a strap, it won't be long before you're looking for another strap...

So already 5 seconds off of a 2 min track, and another 4-6 expected?!? DAMN, that's impressive!!! Congrats.

Having worked in several dealerships as a mechanic it was always my understanding that the shop was the profitable part of the business. The car sales make relatively little, it's parts and service that pays the bills. That's not to say that you're wrong that it's hard to make money as a dealership, but I think the tough part about being a car dealer right now is selling cars in the first place. Turns out C4C DIDN'T jump start car sales... shocker.

If they're shank style lug nuts where they have a straight cylindrical section that slides into the wheel you need the shank to fit the wheel correctly. I believe for most common lugs (like 12mm x 1.25) they use 5/8" shanks. If the wheels you have use "acorn" style lug nuts where the taper of the nut centers the wheel, then you need to have the same taper on the wheel and nut. I think most use 60 degree, but some like Diamond Racing Wheels use 45 degree taper if I recall correctly. RH = right hand thread. Some old Mopars used LH threads on one side of the car and RH on the other, so the motion of the wheel would be opposite of the threads and the wheels would be less likely to come loose. 1/2 = 1/2" I would guess, but not really enough info there to be sure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_sizing 12mm is the diameter of the stud, 1.25 is the thread pitch. This is the size stud used for the 240Z and many other vehicles.

Follow the link on my last post.

Cutting the backing plate would be the thing to do. I drove my Z daily for years with no backing plates front or rear. Never had problems in the rain. YMMV.

The strut towers have about a 1/8" thick plate across the top and down about an inch on the sides. You NEED to get into that metal. They also have a sheet metal piece that covers over the thick stuff, but you really don't want your camber plates welded just to the sheet metal. They NEED to be welded to the thicker part. Can't trust that part to be welded to 20 ga sheet metal. Other than that I'd be a bit concerned about cutting on an aluminum steer knuckle. If you just reshaped the outside a bit that's not such a big deal but if you cut into the meat of it, I think I'd buy more and take the backing plates off. I looked at your picture, but I can't see what you did.

I didn't get too far into it before I was fairly well convinced not to do it, but I think there is an issue with the oil pump which drives off the front of the crank. You have to shim it forward, and shim the pickup to match. I gather this is stuff you also have to do if you run a dual row timing chain, which I also intend to do, so then it's shimmed way the hell out there and I was anticipating running into issues with the pulleys and balancer, etc. Look on ls1tech.com and you'll find just a few threads on motor plates, mostly with people saying "why?" I think if you use solid motor mounts the engine block still acts as a chassis stiffener, although it probably isn't as efficient as it would be with a plate in front and back.

I've got the plumber at my house. Let's just say you made out better than I did, but at least I can flush the toilet again...

I was looking at doing this on my L33 (5.3L truck motor) but it seems like there are some hassles that come along with it, especially on the LSx motors. A little bit of looking has me convinced that I'm going to use the regular mounting points and just make solid mounts that attach there.

Then there's this. I know Dave was using the OBX, but he says: http://forums.hybridz.org/showpost.php?p=1120579&postcount=3

Never been on any Z31 site, so I have no knowledge of that, but I'll take your word for it that people there are cutting down the spacers. That doesn't necessarily mean that it needs to be done. I've been in damn near EVERY diff thread on this forum in the last 5 years, and I have never seen anyone talk about cutting down the mcmaster spacers. So when you take an issue that has previously been pretty settled and bring in posts from another forum that bring things into question, I'd say you've muddied the waters. I just went and looked at my spare LSD, and marked the depth of the carrier. I then went to measure with my digital caliper but the batteries are dead. Eyeballing against a metric ruler it looks like right about 12mm. Tough to say exactly, but I can tell you that 10mm is shorter than strictly necessary without a doubt. If you would like to send some spacers to me I'll check them and let you know.

So Joe, no comment on lap times before and after swap?