JMortensen

Agreed. Not certain that the mount is all that wonderful either. I suppose it does look cool until you start to analyze it though...

If you set the ride height where you've been posting pictures, 5" of travel puts your frame rail about 4" underground. I understand you're going to raise the floor, but I don't think you need the travel you're trying to get, even with the floor raised.

Not sure if there are any currently in production. I think you'd be more likely to find them in an online search if you spelled "fenders" correctly though.

Why do you want the same amount of travel? You don't need it if you're running stiff springs, and I thought you were headed in that direction.

The late 260/280 strut housings are 1" longer than the 240/early 260 housings. You can section the front 1" or use the 280 rear housings to fix the problem. You can reuse the same struts too, just need a 1" spacer underneath to make them fit the taller housing.

Open the rear hatch and take a picture of the rear strut towers. We should be able to look at that and tell. Or you can search "240 280 differences" and figure it out yourself.

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=137494 There were lots of these flares out there, seems like just about every race team made their own flares and they're all slightly different, so the chances that these fit right up is slim to none. I would think that buying parts and working from them would be easier than trying to start from scratch. Brian's parts are REALLY well done.

There is a Z31 diff that has a different spline count. It is the 88 SS with the viscous LSD. It is also extremely rare compared to the open diffs and the turbo clutch LSD that came in the Z31's.

The yoke or companion flange is the piece at the front of the differential that the driveshaft bolts to. The whole thing is really not too complicated at all. Since you have a 260, you're good to go with just this stuff as far as bolting the diff in. Note that this means if you have a diff and mustache bar from a 280Z, you just put it in. With regards to the CV swap and the halfshafts being too long, there is this bit: If you have a late 260 you have the same body and suspension as the 280Z, so you don't have to worry about the halfshafts bottoming. If you have the early 260, then you need to deal with that issue. You can shorten the stock U-jointed halfshafts, you can run CVs (which may also need shortening) or you can lengthen the rear control arms. Easiest cheapest method to fix this problem is to shorten the stock halfshafts. There are a number of threads on how to get this done, its really not that big a deal. Examples: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=147122 http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=145643

I guess I got lucky with the CCI ammo then. My rifle seems to like it just fine! Especially with the action fastened in the crappy way that it is, I think I'm going to agree and skip on the bedding on the .22. I might give some thought to bedding my .243 M70 Winchester Lightweight. I'll have to get it out to the range and put a couple rounds through it and see what it does. I had one 3 shot 1.25" group @ 100 yards that hung on my wall when I was a kid, but I honestly think it was a fluke. I could never seem to get it down below about 2" consistently for a 3 shot group and I was handloading for it previously too so I had tried different bullet weights, powders, etc. 3 shot group is pretty weenie I think, but I used to stop there if I was doing well because if I shot any more it seemed like I'd suddenly have a 3" group. The .243 does have a fixed 4x (cheap Tasco) scope on it. I had recently been thinking that a higher power scope would allow me to aim more accurately, but then I kinda figure that the center is the center, so 4x should be good enough to do better than I was able. Any input there?

Finally got a chance to go out and shoot my 581 with the new stock. I had to reposition the scope, and I hadn't fired the thing in probably 20 years, but I was still able to hit the paper so it wasn't too hard to dial the scope in from there. While working on the stock I read online that standard velocity is better than high velocity at 50 yards because the high velocity bullets will slow through the sound barrier and that causes them to become unstable. I hadn't heard of this previously, so I brought some high velocity ammo that I had on hand, and bought some standard velocity ammo at the range to test it against. I was talking about glass bedding this rifle, but after shooting it, I just don't think there is any need. It's not a one hole gun at 50 yards, but it did give me a 3 hole 5 shot group at 50 that was 3/8" to 7/16", depending on how optimistically you measure. I'm calling it 3/8". I also put 50 rounds into about an inch with a couple flyers here and there. I'm very happy. I think I would have been more impressed with the gun if I had shot the standard velocity ammo when I was a kid. It really makes a difference. To test the difference I did a couple groups with the high velocity next to the standard on the same target. Left is high velocity, the top is a 15 shot group and the bottom is a 5 shot group. These were my last shots of the day so the gun probably had 200+ rounds through it at this point. Interesting to note that the high velocity ammo shot about 3" high and to the right of the standard velocity too... Best group: With tape measure: 50 shot: 15 shot groups: 5 shot groups:

Or is the choke lever off but the nozzles stuck down?

Would you like to sell another set of those?

Forget about replacing the ring and pinion, just swap the LSD into another diff if it comes to that. I'd run it. When I sold diff parts for Randy's R&P we had lots of oddball diffs that we had used gears for. Sometimes we'd sell them with light rust or pitting, because the guy just needed gears and couldn't find anything else. Never had a set sent back or complained about. If the pitting isn't really bad I don't think it will make a difference. It's tough to tell from your picture how deep the pits are...

100% Ackerman means that the wheels follow the arc of the turn exactly, vs parallel steer where they both turn at the same angle. I'm sure there is a way to calculate it without measuring, but since I suck at math and trigonometry I was just going to measure it and then compare to 100% Ackerman which you can find in books, and figure it that way. I think you're right about the control arm angle. I made the spacer in front of the LCA as short as possible so that the control arm could stay as perpendicular to the frame rail, and then moved the rack back to get the Ackerman. It's the angle of the tie rod that matters, not the angle of the control arm. I modified Ron's jpg to show the difference. In my suspension the TC rod pivot and control arm pivot are also in line front to back. I'm very interested in what KAZU did. I know tube80z has talked about that before, and I've always been a little confused by the idea. It seems to me that by putting the strut off line with the ball joint, when you turn the wheel you're actually moving the struts side to side in relation to the centerline of the car. Maybe that doesn't matter in actual practice, but it seems like a really weird side effect of offsetting the strut and ball joint. Do I have that wrong? I feel like I don't have the full story there...

Answered this one for you at classiczcars.com

Not really familiar with the RX7 per se, but this all sounds correct. The problem with using longer steer knuckles on a Z is the rack ration isn't right for it. If you could find a different rack that might make a longer knuckle a viable option to get more Ackerman.

Are you going to use a stock crossmember? If so, you're limited by that piece. I've got my rack attached directly to the crossmember and although I haven't measured the Ackerman I'm pretty sure it's less than 100%. I would also venture a guess to say that Richard was at less than 100% with his modified steer knuckles. With both you might get close. Some formula cars are running 150-200%, so there is an argument for going more extreme...

Dammit. Now I think that I may be wrong on that. Regardless, I think a 5 or 6 degree change in the angle from stock is going to make a very minimal difference in the Ackerman, probably more than compensated for my by lengthening the TC rod even just a little bit. EDIT--You got there before I did. Still don't think it's worth worrying about. I'd be much more worried about installing short steer knuckles like in the picture and it's effect than I would about tilting the knuckle back.

The ball joint should allow for the movement of the strut without affecting the angle of the steer knuckle.

Moving the top of the strut back has no effect on Ackerman at all. Ackerman is determined by the relation and angles of the tie rods to the rack and ball joint. Moving the top back has no effect.

Moving the rack back gives the tie rods a bit of a bell crank like effect which increases Ackerman. I can't see how moving the control arm forward doesn't do the same thing. Am I missing something?

Did you try pushing the nozzles up? Only takes a second, you do it with your hand, and it's free.

BZ3099's in front BZ3015's the rear. Section to fit the strut insert.

Yeah, warranty is not bad at all. The only hangup I have is I'm not really happy with the wide gear spacing. I'd prefer 5th to be in the .85 range or so. Still looks like it's a lot stronger than a T5 and it is lighter and smaller than a T56.