JMortensen

You could run 12's in front. The question is, can you turn them? I guess if you had power steering, I can't see a reason not to do it. Ian and Steve in Fresno were running the Goodyear rears which are 11.5's front and back, but they were running them on a 10" rim. You really need a 12" rim to get the full effect.

Malthus strikes again!

Not so sure about this one. I think it would be close. I remember Clifton had to shorten his lower control arms to fit the Yokohama rears under IMSA flares, and I though that the IMSA flares were an inch wider than the YZ flares. It could also be that Clifton is running a 15x14 wheel because the Yokohamas are 350mm wide. I guess the point is that it might be close. There is also a 12" Hoosier rear, I picked one up and have mounted it to test for fitment with the IMSA flares from http://www.zccjdm.com but haven't had any time to check it yet.

I went the medium cheesy method and got stainless straps from Harbor Freight. There was a thread a week or so ago mentioning where to get a proper CV strap.

Nice Dan. Looks good. I like what I'm hearing about the tires too, since I always tended to have steering wheel movements that were a bit on the jerky side, especially in slaloms...

In retrospect I think every V6 or Turbo 4 toy came with an 8" diff like you said. There's nothing wrong with them and as you said you can get all sorts of gears, lockers, LSD's, etc because they're popular with the 4x4 crowd. Still it seems like a weird choice to me, because the car guys usually go for the 9", the 8.8, or the 12 bolt. Maybe I just need to get past my preconceived notions. True-trac gear LSD for $400 looks pretty good, as does a R&P set for ~$200. And since they're a drop out they're easy to work on... I wonder how hard it is to find brake upgrades.

Do we need to remind you that if you go back a couple years from 81 and cars get faster too? That mid 70s to mid 80s era was not a good time for manufacturing performance cars. 71 Vette with 454: 0-60 in 5.3, 1/4 mile in 13.8 81 Vette with engine not worth noting: 0-60 in 7.7, 1/4 mile in 16

Agreed. Low compression and open chambers ruled the day in the mid 70's to mid 80's. Compare that 280ZXT to a newer Toyota Camry. According to zparts.com, Car and Driver came up with a best 0-60 time on a 280ZXT of 6.8, and a 1/4 mile of 15.2 at 89 mph.The 2007 V6 model does 0-60 in 6.1 and 1/4 in 14.6, with no lag, more weight, more creature comforts, crappier FWD layout, etc. Any car can be made fast and I can see arguments for using a 280ZXT as a starting platform. It is certainly lighter than most modern cars, for instance. That said, the 280ZXT is not a fast car in stock form in my opinion. Nice leakdown numbers though! That's a tight engine you've got there, so congrats on that! Looks like a good one to build on.

2wd Toyota is a 7.5". 4wd older model is an 8". They're strong axles for their size, but not as strong as a 9" and not commonly used in a hot rod application.

I wouldn't describe gravity bleeding as "efficient". It works to get SOME fluid in the system if there was none previously, as sometimes it can be hard to get fluid through the lines in that situation. I wouldn't ever use it for a regular bleed.

Drive from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo on Hwy 1.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/differential.htm

Junkyards, classified ads at sites like this one.

After you get all the bolts off you might have to pry the cover off. Try smacking the cover with a rubber mallet. If that doesn't work then try to hammer a thin chisel or screwdriver in between the case and cover to separate.

Uh... the diff attaches to the car via the cover. You need to take the diff out before you can take the cover off.

Yes, but it's far easier and cheaper to just buy another used differential and swap the whole thing out. Some diagnosing noises links: http://www.ringpinion.com/ContentFrame.aspx?FilePath=Content%2fHowTo%2fGeneralInfo%2f%2fDiagnosing_Noise_(Part_1).inc http://www.ringpinion.com/ContentFrame.aspx?FilePath=Content%2fHowTo%2fGeneralInfo%2f%2fDiagnosing_Noise_(Part_2).inc

Cool video. Yew shud du sumthin aboot yer soupreimely unakurrit speleng tho.

Sounds like something is bad wrong. You're probably going to have to pull the diff and take off the cover to figure it out, but driving in a straight line indicates ring and pinion problems. The other one that comes to mind is the cross pin shaft backing out and hitting the case, which we've seen with several drag raced Zs over the years.

The one with the L shaped pickup is the one that can move. The star shaped one is fixed in position. I don't know about one giving a hotter spark than the other. They both run 12 volts, and signal the coil, so ??? You should jump the ballast resistor with either, that will make the spark hotter, then you can always go aftermarket coils, MSD, etc.

Pick up the book Chassis Engineering by Adams. It's not the most in depth book ever, but it really goes after torsional rigidity and talks about how useless a ladder frame is in torsion. It has balsa wood models to test rigidity of different cage ideas.

http://farnorthracing.com/autocross_secrets16.html This page has suggestions for where the knee in the valving should be and how stiff the valving should be. Is it right? I dunno. How about you try it and let us know???

Go look again. The frame rails under the floor are about 1/2" deep because of the reduced ground clearance there. The 280Z frame rails are a little deeper, but they run higher. You can put a 3x2 tube in, but if you have 1.5" sticking up through the floor I think it gets a little clumsy for your feet, and if you stick more out of the floor you'll run into ground clearance issues. Try using your 2x3 tube to reinforce the rockers and welding your cage to that. It's been discussed a couple times previously. If you search for "chassis stiffening" I'm sure you'll find one of those discussions. EDIT--I typed this up then had a customer call, so it sat and then I posted without re-reading the thread.

Great to see someone going smaller. In addition to lower gear ratio you also lower the cg and even if the wheels are slightly heavier, the moment arm is shorter. If they're way heavier then obviously to optimize lighter wheels would be a good idea. Brake clearance is obviously not an issue, but just for clarity the reason why is because the fronts are 10.5" vented rotors instead of the 11" solid rotors the Z has. Even the Z can fit 13" rims with a little bit of caliper grinding. Good job Frank coming in 5th overall in stockish ZX (bet that surprised a lot of people), and thanks for proving the point I've tried so hard to make over the years. If you go Prepared you can run real slicks too, and there are lots of choices for 13's. Used slicks are available and cheap. Used DOT's are hard to find.

I think the early 280ZX distributor is the same as the later one, aside from the module. If I'm wrong on that and yours is like the 280Z distributor with a gap adjusted trigger inside the cap, I like the later distributor better. Two reasons why: 1. the later distributor has less mechanical advance 2. The stator and reluctor can't move in relation to one another (assuming the vac advance isn't broken. A friend of mine had the pickup move into the trigger wheel on the early style EI distributor at an autox, and the car just died on the spot. Took a while to figure out what had happened. With a ZX distritubor that isn't broken, that failure wouldn't have happened. If you're going to put money into ignition, check out some of the DIY direct ignition setups. They are way more accurate than any distributor will be and some of them are pretty inexpensive.

Still sounds like reaction disk to me. Maybe it's not sealing? Did you see this thread? http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=144114 Might try another booster, even if it's the same size...