JMortensen

It's all a matter of degrees. Looking at what a Champ car costs to run does nothing for us. John's example is closer to the mark, but even here it didn't need to be that expensive. John had a sequential gearbox and a very high dollar motor, etc. Racing is an expensive hobby, but I think John had too much money in a high strung, short lived engine and gearbox to be comparable to most other Z's.

Well when you get here, give me about a decade to get my car together and we'll go to Pacific Raceway.

Got parts. The HRB has no mounting holes or anything. I kinda figured it would bolt to the trans or something. Anyway I'm not going to be into it for probably a month, got house projects in mid-stream and tonsillectomy/deviated septum surgery on Friday, but I did get the parts and they look good for anyone else considering the same...

I'm guessing you're talking about the solid axle. I think the question was about the 8.8 IRS.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh...MUST... AVOID... POLITICAL... RANT!

Have you looked into the feasibility of actually using these parts on a Z? If you just want to bolt them on you might be able to find someone that sells them, but if you want them to actually function it's going to be a little more difficult to get it actually working. We've discussed this in some of the aero threads.

I read an article on Cameron and the plot and decided I wasn't going to rush out to see it. Looks like I was right on the money based on your description.

Vipers do use Dana 44s, as did some older Vettes for just a couple years in the early 80s. Dana 44 is an 8.5" ring gear. I'm guessing that comment is directed at me. There is more to a diff than the output shafts, and after selling quite a few gearsets because the pinion or ring teeth sheared off, I can tell you that ring gear diameter is important too. Drag racers get to a point pretty quickly IME where the weak point is the ring and pinion size. It's speculation, but more than just idle speculation.

The GM diff is a 7.75". While I don't know of failures, I'd be surprised if it was as tough as an R230. You can do a custom Ford 9" for IRS. Not cheap, but can be done. The 8.8" is also pretty tough, comes stock in the few years of IRS Mustangs and quite a few Explorers. http://www.kitcarmag.com/howto/rcc_specialty_products_ford_9inch_irs_cobra_replica/index.html

Good luck. I have deviated septum/tonsilectomy/adenoidectomy and a bunch of other sinus stuff coming out Friday. I hope those drugs work for both of us...

One would think that the strut towers and surrounding area would be most important, but really the rockers tie the front of the unibody to the rear of the unibody, so the whole thing is important, and the stock body is so flexible that I have a lot of trouble thinking that just doing the areas around the struts is good enough. That's my untested estimation.

No way a 4.5" or 5" backspace 13, 14, or 15" wheel is going to clear stock coils.

I screwed up the above. Fixed now, but it needs to be http://www.whatever.com

(img)http://www.yoururl.com/picturename.jpg(/img) but use brackets [] instead of parentheses.

A friend of mine did that 2nd to 1st shift in her 240Z and took all the friction material off the clutch disk (didn't explode the pp or anything, just took the disk out), but more interestingly she also popped a hole in the water jacket and coolant poured out of the head. She ended up with a new motor and clutch as a result.

Go look again. I know that it's a 2x4 plus some distance from the back of the head to the firewall, because I used to use a 2x4 to keep the engine from tilting back when changing clutches. I'd guess 4.5 to 5 inches clearance there. The flywheel is not 4.5 to 5 inches deep, nor is the footwell deeper than the upper part of the firewall. The flywheel and clutch assembly is ENTIRELY in front of the firewall. Does that mean that your feet aren't in danger? No, and that's why I went to the trouble of making a scattershield for my car. Parts can explode down, hit the ground and BOUNCE up into the footwell. The centrifugal force on the flywheel and clutch is going to make it explode basically radially outward, assuming the flywheel hasn't come loose. I think the fact that Norm's 20 gauge sheetmetal floorpan was dented and had small individual holes but was not shredded is evidence of that fact. Here I'll save you the trouble of going and looking: http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/data/500/re_0015.JPG

Not to my knowledge. The clutch in a stock Z is well forward of the firewall, for what that's worth. One option is to make your own, I did this by cutting 1/8" sheet and bending to fit the tunnel, then welding two together to create a 1/4" thick shield and bolted it to the tunnel on both sides. Another is to get a Kevlar blanket and wrap it around the bell housing. These were originally intended to capture the gears in the transmission, but several people I've talked to say that they would work to catch clutch or flywheel fragments too.

Congrats on the new Z. Race car for the wife is a good idea...

280ZX brakes clear 13's without any issues, I'm pretty darn sure on that as I have several friends with 510s running 280ZX brakes and 13" rims. They fit the Z's too, but only after a bit of caliper grinding in front.

Clutch forks are not a problem, so long as you have the adjustable slave if you use the early fork. I used the early fork on a 280Z pressure plate with no problems at all. I liked the adjustability in the clutch. For those that didn't feel a need for adjustability, a non-adjustable slave pin and a 280Z fork should work fine on a 240Z pressure plate. The collar height matching the pp height is the key.

Stitch weld. You won't be in any class that will have a rule against stitch welding with that setup, and it sounds like the right time to do it.

Been doing a bit of research on motor plates and how it affects the front of the LS1. Apparently you have to shim the oil pump out and sometimes machine the balancer. A thread on ls1tech.com suggested just using solid regular motor mounts. Is there a downside to this? If I'm starting from scratch it seems like I could easily make plates or boxed in brackets that bolt to the stock motor mount location and frame rail. Could probably even weld the brackets in so that the block sat directly on them and then you just screw the block straight to the bracket which is part of the chassis.

Do some more searching and you'll find my comments on the new design. Needless to say, I think the old part was much better than the new one. Nobody pays for my opinions though.

As it happens I'll be using a T56 so that might be a convenient way to go. How did you hook up a speed sensor to an old Datsun transmission? Sensor on driveshaft? Sorry for all the questions, I'm just really curious about what all is needed to get this system up and running.

How does it know how fast you're going?