JMortensen

There is quite a bit of weight in the tubes. When I did mine the SCCA said they were going to change the tubing requirements, and at the time they had 1.5 x .120 and 1.75 x .090. I went with 1.75 x .120 anticipating a change to a heavier tube, but when they released the rules, they had gone the other way and the requirement was 1.5 x .095. I haven't gone through how much weight I would have saved with 1.5 x .095, but man, I wish I had gone that way. Probably 50 lbs added, a lot of it way up high. Not good. EDIT--I did do the 6 point main part of the cage in 1.75 x .120, then I did all of the other stiffening tubes in 1.625 x .065.

I'm not a vintage racer, but I believe they're allowed to run the way they were in the past. They used to allow cages without the tubes welded all the way around too, and I think those cars are still allowed. BTW I did the same on the seat mount, welded to the SFCs. Used to be a video of a Honda drag racer that went sideways into the wall and the AL seat folded in half, video was pretty scary looking. I get that some seats don't need it, but I like the idea regardless of whether it's required.

Have you seen the Flying Miata butterfly brace? That's a good place to start. Hard to do on a Z with the exhaust hanging down. Reason number 486 for going with sidepipes. If I ever get around to doing a paneled floor, I'll incorporate some sort of bracing into the top side. For protecting the driver really needs to extend all the way to the rockers.

Yeah, haven't seen a racing series where AL tubing is allowed. Mostly it's mild steel ERW (drag racing) or DOM (SCCA). Some allow chromoly, but it's harder to weld correctly so you have to be more careful with it and the tech inspectors will scrutinize it more closely. Re: Pike's Peak, the one thing that I think it's really hard to do on a Z is to protect the floor. It's already so low, and most of us want the car lower, that it's tough to get any protection on the floor. Heavy85 was talking about how to do it when he rolled his Z at a hillclimb into small boulders, luckily he walked away unscathed.

Looks a lot like mine, right down to the defunct Autopower mounting holes in the rear fenderwells! Nicely done!

Wouldn't it be nice to see some actual testing? There are some basic ideas of how to do such a test in the book Think Fast, but requires making plates to bolt to the hubs and screwing to the slab. I suspect I could have gotten the rigidity gains I did with fewer tubes and less weight with some FEA prior to building too. All too technical for my little brain...

I stitch welded those areas. The middle of the wheelwell is easy if you have a rotisserie. The inside area where the wheel well hits the inside of the body is a huge PITA, because there are about 4 layers of metal with seam sealer jammed in between. I'd either skip it, or weld a plate that attaches to each side over the seam so that you don't have to dig all the sealer out. Took forever.

Just FYI, I've got an L33 aluminum block 5.3 with a small cam and carb setup because I can't wire a lamp and it should put down 370whp, so that's mid 400s at the crank. It's not hard to get power from the LS. It's glorious, runs on pump gas, not high strung like my previous L28 with triple 44s and 11:1 and all that stuff. Torque out of low speed corners is amazing. On the tank, I would suggest NOT doing a fuel cell. I had similar issues with leaks, I think my tank split the seam or something. Wasn't rusty, never had issues with rust in the lines or any of that, but WOULD NOT seal after replacing everything, also never could seal the cap either so I'd always have fuel leaking out around the door from tight left handers. A cell did solve that problem but it was expensive, added about 20 or 25 lbs (friggin heavy), and was a serious PITA to install correctly with a barrier between the cabin and the cell itself, something most people don't do. Surge tank is pretty easy to DIY. Have been thinking about FI for mine, and looking at options. There are a lot of AL catch cans out there with NPT fittings, would be pretty easy to set one up with some AN fittings, set up an inline pump for the FI and run the return plumbing back to the tank. If you have a tig would also be easy to make, just get a short length of tube, weld caps and AN fittings to it.

From most aggressive to least, options that are actually available for R200s: welded, clutch, helical, viscous, phantom grip.

Like the old Phantom Grip but with a trap beat on the videos instead of Freedom Rock. Shit product.

Yes, they really are. What do you have to do? Lower the car I guess. I used to hit them quite a bit. CA roads didn't help. Now I have sectioned struts and 600 in/lb springs, so not an issue anymore.

The problem with a deep 1st gear and low gears is you wind it out at 25 mph. That's why you have 3.54s in the 280. When you go to the taller 3.062:1 1st gear in 1980 they also went to 3.90 diff gears.

Slot direction doesn't matter, but people tend to do it the same direction as the fins.

It's just like a squirrel cage fan. So if you look at the fins from the top of the rotor they should point to the back of the car.

There are straight vaned rotors and curved vane rotors. My guess is that Dave is selling the straight vaned type, which are not directional. If the actual part number shows curved vanes and Dave is saying that they're universal, that would surprise me.

Any circle track supplier will have rotors. You need to know the diameter, the thickness, and the bolt circle. I think their normal kit is 12.2 x 1.2 with a 8 on 7" bolt circle in the front. Not sure if they use the narrower .83" rear rotor. Think so. Pit Stop USA usually has pretty good prices. There are different brands, but I linked to their Wilwood rotors here: https://pitstopusa.com/c-135208-brake-systems-and-components-disc-brake-rotors-wilwood-rotors-wilwoodcurved-vane-brake-rotors.html

I tried to offer a full chromoly 930 CV axle kit for the R200 when I had M2 Differentials up and running. I never took money for it, but trying to get the ******* machinist to make the parts was positively infuriating, and it went on for months. All I can tell you is that it's just as irritating for Ohm as it is for all of you. I felt like I was going to get an ulcer trying to get that kit together, finally just gave up on it entirely. Not making excuses though, and Ohm shouldn't have taken any money until he was sure he could provide the parts, but I really do feel bad for him, having been in a similar situation.

Not a fan of the roof spoiler. Surprisingly not offended by the rest of it. Pretty impressed actually. I can see the modded ones looking really good.

Agreed on AZC's probably Chinese struts, and their control arm setup. Their AL rear strut is also not the strongest design, cobramatt broke his and mentioned it here, along with the need to upgrade the struts because they weren't up to snuff. Also not a fan of their AL bumpsteer spacer/short steer knuckle. Ben broke his and replaced with the Apex Engineered steel ones. I really don't like T3s rear arm design, but outside of that, at least you know that the struts are good. You didn't say longnose or short nose R200, but I'm also not impressed with T3's power cradle thing they're selling for a shortnose mount. Apex makes a rear arm based on my own design, so I'm partial to that, but they've had a lot of complaints about not being able to provide axles for their full track package setup. Also the short arm in the front setup looks ridiculously short. I haven't seen any kinematics, but I'd like to see what the camber curve on that one is.

Clean metal, prepped with brake cleaner. Most of the metal had been hit with an angle grinder + knotted wire wheel, so should have been plenty of grip available.

FWIW, I used Rust Bullet and scuffed and prepped and it did flake off in fairly large flakes. Could be my prep wasn't up to snuff, but I'm no longer a fan.

FWIW, I have an aluminum 5.3/T56 in my early 240. Pre swap was 49.5F / 50.5R with me in it, after swap is same weight within 2 lbs, but 52/48 with driver weight, so more front heavy. This is with the engine 1.5" from the firewall, but also has a heavy plywood splitter, heavy aftermarket PS rack gigantic wheels and tires, etc. With iron block should be closer to 54/46ish. You can make that handle if that's what you're after, just takes some working with alignments, etc.

There has to be some angle; the angularity is what rotates the needle bearings in the u-joints. Without the angle the power will be applied to the same few needles over and over and they will fail quickly. Occasionally you'll see this come up when someone makes their own mounts and decides to "fix" the driveshaft angles by not having any. Sounds good but doesn't work, unless you're running a torque tube without u-joints like a Vette or a 944.

There are some old threads on using laser pointers. I don't think you'll find a spec as to what the angle should be, but you will find some info on how to adjust. I am just horrible at math, so I did the laser pointer thing and basically shined lights from the diff and the trans on a piece of paper in the middle and then moved the trans mount until I could move the paper back and forth and the distance between the dots hardly changed at all. Basically held up the piece of paper, marked the dots with a sharpie, moved paper and tried to line up the dots again at the new location. When I got a minimum of movement of the dots, I called it good and welded up my engine and trans mounts to keep that angle. You can do this more accurately with trigonometry if you're less retarded than me. Regardless, my math avoidance workaround was successful, no vibrations with V8 offset to pass side, T56, R200, very short driveshaft (cyl head is ~1.5" from firewall) I want to say CTC on the driveshaft u/joints was 19". The problem with just the vertical angle measure is that the trans and diff might not be parallel to the center line of the car, and they are probably also not perfectly in line with each other.

I don't know what kit Z Car Depot is selling, but I've heard bad things about the cheapo RPM kits, and my friend had hers rebuilt 3 or 4 times due to bad synchros with that kit. It's been at least 20 years, so thinks may have changed, but I think factory Nissan synchros was the answer, the bearings in the cheap kits were fine buy synchro rings weren't up to snuff. EDIT--the other tricky part was the nut at the end of the mainshaft. Seems to have a propensity to loosen, despite being staked. My plan with mine was to tig weld the nut to the shaft in a couple spots and hope it didn't warp the shaft too much. Wonder if you might be able to tighten and then drill a hole and put a roll pin through to keep it from moving.