JMortensen

Ha ha ha. THAT looks familiar. My car was red originally too. I mean that looks JUST like what I had to deal with. I ended up running through 4 or 5 fine wire wheels and probably a case of brake cleaner getting the rest of the tar residue off. Good luck, and don't squirt the brake cleaner directly at the car unless you're wearing safety glasses. Nothing stings quite so bad as brake cleaner in the eye.

I have one along with the entire 2.5" mandrel bent system I built. The header has an O2 bung welded in and the exhaust has a Super Turbo muffler which is dead. I have an Ultra Flo that I was going to replace it with that I would include in the deal. At a track day the rear hanger did melt and the exhaust did drag on the ground near where the diff is, but it is still in pretty good shape other than that scrape and it fits TIGHT to the body. Very tight. As with all of my stuff, it's not show quality, but it is go quality. I wouldn't think shipping the exhaust would be a good idea unless I cut it into pieces, but It wouldn't be too hard to reassemble if I did that. Say $275 for the whole setup, if I were shipping it you'd pay shipping charges too.

Congrats Terry. The picture that I saw in the link with the car on the grass was a different angle and really made the car look better than I've ever seen it look before. Side note--I had a friend come over and we did a HORRIBLE patch on her van conversion's roof which had a hole. I showed her your car as an example of what FRP could be like, needless to say she was impressed.

WTF? So the cop sees a crime in progress and says "STOP! Or don't, cause I'm not gonna stop you!" At least they can bulk up on donuts and not have to worry about actually having to chase people down.

Most of the pics are gone, but you can see the AZC thread here: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=123263 It might be true that most people don't push their stuff as hard as Dave Kipperman does. He's got 10" slicks front and 13" slicks rear and an LS2 with 400+ hp, but he did break the arm fix it, and then break it in another spot, and I wasn't impressed with the threaded ends used (turned down nuts instead of a proper threaded end). My threaded ends get plug welded through the tube, that apparently was also not done on the AZC arms, presumably because the turned down nuts are too short to allow it.

I looked on the local autox forum and asked if there was a cage builder local. I then emailed him Dan's gif and asked how much, he gave me a price and I paid him by cc and went and picked up the bent hoop and the tubing needed to do the whole roll bar.

I love that one. My friend's brother got nailed for "driving about without a purpose". He went to court and won. I can't remember what he said, but we had suggested that he either said that his purpose was to burn gas, or that he wanted to get a better view of the stars, so he figured he'd drive down the street. I think his argument might have been "I had a purpose but I didn't want to tell the policeman what it was because it's none of his business." Driving while 2AM is BS, plain and simple. Sorry you got hassled for it.

The ones that I'm looking at are a 4 piston with the leading pistons at 1.88" and the trailing at 1.75. The 6 pistons are too expensive for me even if I did want them. Thanks for the feedback on the taper issue.

If you're just doing a roll bar I'd have someone bend the hoop, use Dan's gif that is posted here, and the rest of the bars will be straight and just notched. A Harbor Freight tubing notcher works for the roll bar notches because you don't have two bars coming in at weird angles and things like that. Once you start doing a cage the notcher becomes less and less useful. I did my bar in 1.75 x .120 because of the discrepancy you pointed out in the rulebook. Too bad, seeing as how they now allow 1.5 x .095 for a cage in a Z. Stupid rules, unlucky me to build the cage just before they reduced the wall thickness. I'd probably go 1.5 x .095 because I've never EVER seen anyone check roll cage tube thickness at an autox. If you've seen it maybe the tech inspectors in your neck of the woods are a little more fastidious, but I sure haven't. That way if you do a cage later you don't have an extra 30 or 40 lbs of tubing you don't need to have.

I'm looking at a set of Superlites for the front end of my car and I've noticed that they come in the same size piston and a staggered version. I know the theoretical reason for doing this, pad taper, etc, but my question is whether or not pad taper is really that big an issue that it's worth another $70 per caliper. Different piston sizes: http://www.wilwood.com/CaliperProd.aspx?itemno=120-9578-RS $231.79 http://www.jegs.com/i/Wilwood/950/120-9573-RS/10002/-1 Then you can get the "thermlock" pistons (too rich for my blood): $370.99 http://www.jegs.com/i/Wilwood/950/120-9577-RS/10002/-1 Same size: http://www.wilwood.com/CaliperProd.aspx?itemno=120-7430-L $165.95 http://www.jegs.com/i/Wilwood/950/120-7430-R/10002/-1

No, Victoria British sold a steel flare that was basically a modified VW Bug flare, but that is not the same as the MSA street flares.

Agreed. That thread would have went to the tool shed here, which is the way it should be.

What about the lack of triangulation? You really think that the TTT is stronger without any? How about the flat plate on the outside? Is that a particularly strong shape for suspension pieces? How many other suspension arms can you name that are made with a flat plate where the arm connects to the suspension? I'm not a fan of the new TTT arms, and I'm not a fan of the AZC arms especially after seeing viperredls1z's failure some time back, and then hearing that he welded it back up and it failed in another spot. I wish these fabricators would look at the discussions that we've had here and make something similar to what we've come up with.

Tommy, I didn't read your original post very well. I'd suggest you take the distributor you have apart and then disable the vacuum advance. This site will help with disassembly and reassembly: http://www.jrdemers.com/280ZX/distributor/distributor.html Vacuum advance is for mileage. There are a couple reasons why you wouldn't want vacuum advance. 1. If you have triples and a cam it's possible that you don't have the vacuum to operate it properly. 2. If you have triples and a cam you're probably more worried about getting maximum hp at WOT, and vacuum advance doesn't allow that to happen. Examples: By running mech advance only and running a small amount of it like the ZX distributor has, the static timing can be advanced. Instead of running 8 degrees BTDC, you might run 18 at idle. This makes up for what the vacuum advance does at high vacuum situations. The mech advance mechanism from the 280ZX has ~18 degrees of advance in it, so 18+18=36 degrees of advance. Just an example, it might be better to run 14 or 20 degrees at idle, it depends on your particular build. Running vac advance means that you lower the static timing to the factory spec of 8 degrees or whatever it is. Then when you punch it and vacuum is at it's lowest (so you're not getting any help from the vac advance), you'll be left with ONLY what the static timing + mech advance yields. In the case of the ZX distributor that is ~26 degrees (8+18 degrees). As a very general rule, most L series motors make best power at mid to high 30's total advance. The advantage with the vacuum advance is that at highway cruising rpms and vacuum it will add vacuum to the mechanical advance. You might be running 40+ degrees BTDC in this scenario, and that might not be a detriment because the engine can handle it without pinging and will get better mileage for it. In every other situation, I would say that the mechanical with a much higher static timing setting has the advantage of making more power.

If you're going to shell out the king of money you would need to for a Unilite, go get a DIS crank fire ignition system. Crank fire is far more accurate than ANY distributor will be. If you have to keep a distributor, I'd pick a 280ZX distributor and then eliminate the vacuum advance. In fact, I'll sell you my old one if you want (going V8). I'd do the MSD 6AL, the 280ZX distributor and Master Blaster II coil for $150. The vacuum advance has been JB Welded so that it can't move and the bushings in the dizzy were just checked about 5000 miles ago and are in good shape. You would need cap, rotor, and wires to run it. As to the MSD type ignitions, you should jump the ballast when you run them. You'll get a MUCH hotter spark with the ballast jumped, and they're designed for a full 12 volts.

510's have a lot of suspension issues when you lower them, which everyone wants to do. There are workarounds for all of the issues, but it's a lot of hassle. If you just have to have a 510, get a 510. They are definitely cool little cars and I grew up with guys that raced them so I have a lot of love for them, and I understand why you want a pair. If you just want a cool car to drive around in, sounds like the Lexus already fills the bill, it's safer for the kids assuming you drive nicely, has much more power than a 510 is likely to be able to use, smoother suspension, less NVH, etc.

That's freakin awesome.

That's a great alternative, the Kameari tensioner and an adjustable cam gear. It's also about $800 for just those two parts, but it is a great alternative if you have the $$$.

Am I in the minority in thinking that this is an insane waste of money?

Do some searching. You'll probably need to adjust the rod between the booster and the master and also might have a reaction disk problem. Search reaction disk and you should find all the info you need.

Also be aware that if you're turning the pinion and expecting to see the output shafts turn and thinking that the backlash is supposed to be .005 to .008 so the pinion shouldn't hardly move, that's wrong. People always turn the driveshaft and see how much movement there is and then think that backlash is the cause of their clunk noise, but it isn't. It's normal to get about 1/4" of movement in an open carrier, and it might even be normal to get MORE than that with a Quaife because you have to get all the gears inside up against the case before the pinion shaft will move. If it isn't making noises or having some other problem the slop is probably normal.

It's not just upshifting that loses speed. I learned that one a long time ago when I let a guy with a little slower than mine drive my car. He beat me by about 1/2 second in my own car. There was a slalom to an end cone which had to be turned around and then you slalomed back. He kept it in second and bogged around the cone. I downshifted to first and then back to second. His way was faster.

Under load the nose of the diff lifts, under decel it is pulled down. That makes it pretty unlikely that it is the driveshaft itself hitting anything. This is a good one...