JMortensen

That is what a ruggles scale is, for the record. I've cornerweighted cars with them. Not as accurate as real scales, but they'll get the job done within 20 lbs.

Thanks for not taking it the wrong way. It's just sounding too good to be true. Your second 210 whp dyno lends credence to the fact that you're making big numbers for what you have, that's for sure. I certainly can't fault your work as everything that I've seen pictures of is amazing, I am just having a hard time crediting your efforts to that great a degree. If the numbers are right your motor is making more hp than an EP engine with 12:1 compression. A LOT more. Those guys are making 250bhp and revving to 8K. It just doesn't seem to add up...

I'm starting to have doubts, please don't take it personally... I have a friend who built a stroker with similar compression, had the head professionally ported by a good shop, tried changing cam timing and ignition timing and couldn't get over 180 whp with that cam on triple 44s. In fact I know several people who have bought that cam and changed it out because it's too small. Have you ever had this engine dynoed before (on a different machine)? After finding out you're running the stage III cam, I'm thinking the dyno you were on might be a wee bit optimistic...

You can stack the billet ones from Coleman Racing. They're expensive though and the pilot hole is just BARELY too small for a Z front hub, but that can be easily fixed. http://www.colemanracing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=2161 Also you might consider buying a piece of 1/2" plate and having a machinist do the work for you. The job of making the spacers doesn't seem very complicated. Might be cheaper than the $100 for 4 from Coleman.

Search the internet for "ruggles scales".

Read the stickies in this forum.

Am I crazy for thinking that would be great detuned by several hundred hp? Seems kinda useless to have an engine that melts the front of the car off after 5 seconds of WOT...

When MatMan bought that huge pile of parts we took the industrial shelving they were on. After the first trip in the back of a huge moving van one of the shelves broke. I borrowed a welder from the guy who was selling us the stuff and grabbed a couple pieces of scrap from his welding table to brace the shelves. Turns out I grabbed stainless (oops) and welded it to the pallet rack style shelving. Worked fine with a 220V Miller and I think 75/25 Ar/CO2. I'm sure it's still holding up 20 or 30 Z doors today...

Yes. This is why you hear people say that cams "bleed compression". That's not what they do at all, but that's where that comes from. Really what they do is they make the engine breathe more efficiently at a higher rpm. If you could do a compression test at 6000 rpm you'd find that the big cam improves the situation vs the stock one.

You ought to take that tire back to the shop and have them spin it 180 degrees on the rim. That is in my opinion an unacceptable amount of weight. While you're at it you might have them redo the whole balance and do it dynamically with weights on the inside and outside of the rim. Right now looks like you have a static balance, which means no weights on the outside and also not a very good balance. As to the brakes, you apparently have 81 control arms and brakes. So what? Like I said before, they don't stop production and throw away all last year's parts.

The cam is what is throwing off the numbers. Big cam, lower compression test #'s. As Pete said, the fact that they're even is what's important.

If you're looking for finished pics of my control arms, no. After a discussion about how to improve them here: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=129154 I trashed the ones in this thread and started over. The original design I had was just fine, but I think the new design will eliminate some side loading of the strut and is really a big improvement over pretty much anything out there right now. I also continue to believe that Dan and I struck upon a really good idea by moving the "load bearing" rod end to the rear and using the short turnbuckle in front and that this will is the best solution I've seen in terms of loading the strut vertically and eliminating side loads.

Mild welds to stainless just fine. Found that one out on accident...

Stupid mechanic... doesn't he know that putting a fire out with piss stinks up the whole apartment?

Nice welding. You should clean the tubes before you weld though. I'm betting Coffey would say "Nice welding, bad welds".

The corner weights are important if you're racing. There is also the Weight Transfer Worksheet (search, there's a lot of references to it here--try WTW also). The WTW deals with roll center heights and spring rates and bar rates and tries to predict how the car will behave. If you're just driving on the street, find a ride height you like where you won't be bottoming out all the time, set it there and drive the car.

Am I missing something? Looks like a 4 point to me...

Here's a super lame groaner that my wife (who is a registered dietitian) told me: What do you call a parrot under an umbrella? Polly unsaturated.

Suggestion: run it down the trans tunnel then hook it out right before the rear suspension.

NICE numbers! You are definitely using what you've got! Very nice job.

The Jeg's cages are built to NHRA specs. In my opinion you can do a LOT better than that. But I would agree with Mike that if you aren't racing, you really shouldn't do a full cage because the roofline of a Z is so low you just can't get the bars far enough away from your head to be reasonably safe. You might take a look at 74_5.0L_Z's cage. Dan did a tubular front end and a roll bar and ended up with something akin to a cage you might find in a convertible. That might be another option if you don't want to wear a helmet every time you drive the car.

In the US we had L24E Maximas. I've never heard anyone complain that the ports were too large. Feel free to disagree, but I still think you guys are headed backwards. If you check zhome.com and look at the reported dyno results and particularly Keith Thomas's ITS results with different bolt ons, you'll see that at 2000 rpm an ITS engine which is as tweaked for high rpm hp as you can get while retaining the stock cam, intake, etc still shows 100 ft/lbs of torque at the wheels, when the engine only has a maximum of 120 at any point in the powerband. I'm betting it has pretty good torque right off idle, but it doesn't make sense to dyno a race engine there so I guess I can't prove it. Regardless, I think your scenario where the normal (still SMALL) ported head doesn't have any power until 3000 rpm is shown to be untrue. But regardless, I hope you do what makes you happy and enjoy the engine that you build.

Tests were done at 80 mph and the info was mathematically extrapolated to 120 mph figures. You probably noticed, but that is not stock vent placement. If you look they're about in line with the front wheels.

Why don't you look at making a flowbench? There are lots of plans online. I think Rebello's street port isn't going to be much different than yours if you took your time and did what you did well. At your dyno day keep in mind that you will be measuring whp, Rebello measures bhp. Also different dynos measure differently, so something that was measured on Rebello's dyno might show higher numbers than something measured on a different shop's dyno. In fact if that happened it wouldn't surprise me at all. Katman has talked numerous times about "west coast hp", and Drax240z has said that he can tweak his dyno to measure 100 hp higher or lower at will. Knowing what little I do about your motor, I'd try swapping in a Rebello cam or even better a Sunbelt single valve spring cam before I spent big $$$ on a "street port" job. I don't think the Rebello headwork AND the cam are going to net you 60 whp though. 60 whp is a LOT. If you want big hp numbers out of small displacement motors, you have to increase displacement, increase compression, and spin them faster. All the while your reliability and streetability and longevity is going down. Finally, rather than doing a frankenhead with the cut up KA heads, why not just consider a motor swap or a turbo? You could hit your goals EASILY and not have to put all the time and energy into any of the above. When I realized the time and effort I put into my L28 I finally said screw it and went out and bought a 310hp 5.3L V8 with 27K miles on it for $1100. Sure I'll have a couple grand in a trans, clutch, driveline, and the rest of what is needed to get it running, but it will still be a lot cheaper than the L, and I won't have to run race gas. In fact, I'm betting it will run fine on 87 octane when its all decked out in "race trim". There are tons of other options though from the RBs, to the SRs, to the KA, the 1JZ, 2JZ, 7MGE, and all these engines can easily outdo a built up NA L series without breaking a sweat.

I agree. Focus on one thing and do what you do well. If you want to expand, start another business for the expansion, that way if one or the other fails it doesn't take everything down with it. My $.02