JMortensen

That's my take on it too.

Since lead is not magnetic, I'm not sure that your bondo magnet idea would be a good one.

That's one of the areas of lead in the car, similar to the lead at the top of the hatch on both sides of the B pillar. The reason that the area isn't smooth is because Nissan didn't smooth it out before they painted it. Mine looked like crap too. The weather strip definitely needs to be replaced and it would normally cover up that crappy looking edge. EDIT--I suppose it could be a crappy repair too, but I'm still thinking it's an area where Nissan didn't spend any time because the weather strip should cover it.

Get the book Chassis Engineering by Herb Adams. He does a lot of modeling like this but he uses a little stronger balsa wood, and then the tests the torsional rigidity of the design. You could do the same, but you'd need frame rails and I don't think the toothpick joints are strong enough. Your rear tubes look like they go all the way back to the car. I'd suggest that is a bad idea and that you should make them attach to the shock mounts or something else closer in so that you keep the crumple zone in the back and if you get rear ended it doesn't junk the whole car.

Rebello is not too far away, and they have Mikuni parts on hand and know how to tune them. Finding someone who really knows what they're doing is the trick.

I'm glad somebody got it. I'd hate to be the only guy who knew that little bit of trivia...

I have the inside track club membership. Used it a couple times and I think it paid for itself. Now that I'm not buying tools as rapidly as I was a year or two ago, I'm not going to re-up the membership. Basically when you go to the store and see things at super sale prices, that's what you'll get from the inside track club. Basically you'll get a 20 or so page mini-catalog filled with unusually good sale prices on whatever select items they decide to offer.

So THAT'S why he wasn't at his post...

Cinco de Mayo was a Mexican victory over the French. Ocho de Mayo was a rout: http://www.inside-mexico.com/featurecinco.htm

2500 lbs is 1136.36363636 kg You can download the SCCA rulebook from http://www.scca.org/contentpage.aspx?content=44. The 2009 GCR is what you want.

The tubes are pretty close to 1.5" diameter, but the wall thickness is .1", not .25". 1mm = .040". .25" would be 6.35mm thick, insane for a roll cage on a lightweight car. Your tubing spec matches up very well with current SCCA regs which suggest 1.5" x .095" tube for sedans up to 2500 lbs.

Go look at tire weights and wheel weights. It's pretty easy to get a tire that is heavier than the rim, especially if you spend a few bucks on rims. For instance, you can find a 15 x 8 that weighs 10 lbs relatively easily. Hoosier A6 in 225/45/15 is 20 lbs according to Tire Rack: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/Spec.jsp?make=Hoosier&model=A6&tirePageLocQty= That said, the edge of the rim from the drop center out is really the heavy part, so the further you have it out towards the tread, the higher the PMOI. If you have a choice between a 15" rim and a 17" rim you might be able to get the same weight and diameter for the rim/tire combo, but I think the 17 is going to have a longer lever on the wheel and is going to be harder to accelerate and decelerate. Coffey put down some scary fast lap times and I think his brakes would have fit inside 14's, given the right 14's. I think he had 11.5" front rotors. What it really boils down to is not now much hp you have but how much weight you have and how much momentum you can carry through the corners. More momentum = more speed at the end of the straight which necessitates larger brakes over a period of time, and more weight exacerbates the problem.

I think the question is: Did he modify the front crossmember or the trans mount in the tunnel? If not your L6 parts should still bolt in.

I would see what you can get away with by removing the strut spacer. If that doesn't work, I like Myron's idea of wheel spacers too. You can also slot the front crossmember for more adjustability.

Just noticed one other thing. It looks as though your main hoop is narrower at the bottom than it is at the first bend. This would violate SCCA's road racing rules of 4 bends of no more than 180 degrees in the main hoop.

This is the internet opinion for sure, but my suggestion is get some people who have actually run a bigger cam to comment. Experience > theory.

Changing gears is a real PITA. I'd suggest if you were going to order gears from Japan that you just order a whole diff instead. I hope more people offer cam opinions for you. I know several people who installed that Stage III and then took it out and installed a larger one later because it really is a small cam and too small for a performance oriented engine. In my opinion if it weren't for the crappy FI systems, that would be a Stage I. But since the crappy FI can't handle a larger cam than stock, they made two other even smaller cams so that people could think they were really stepping up to the Stage III. I drove mine which is similar to a Stage IV in bumper to bumper traffic every day with a light flywheel and Mikunis and it was no problem at all, in fact I should have gone bigger.

Yeah, it really looks pretty good as far as the tube notching and the rest of it. From the last picture it looks like you may have bars from the strut towers intersecting the shoulder bar in the center and on the outsides. The ones in the center may have actually been inspired by my car. If that's the case, don't put them in unless you're going to do the bar straight down the middle of the car like I did, because their purpose is to tie into the V shape coming from the front strut towers to the dash bar. Without that tie in to the front suspension they're not good for anything at all, because they would simply flex the center of the shoulder bar.

MSA's Stage III is the third stage of wussiness. Go bigger on the cam. I'd go bigger than their Stage IV for an aggressive street motor. I don't think there is a lot of love here for guessing power outputs with a given combo, but I've had pretty much that combo with 44 Mikunis and it put down mid 240's whp.

I'm no expert, but I'll give you my impressions. 1. I'd avoid strip malls. It's not the time when people are starting a lot of new businesses and it is the time when lots of small businesses are going under, so you might buy something and then not have any renters for a while, and that could really be a problem. The economy is pretty stable here in Seattle compared to a lot of places, and I still see a fair amount of commercial properties empty around here. 2. I'd do the apartment building or some other form of housing. A lot of people have been scared out of the idea of owning their own home, and others have a more realistic idea of how much income is required to buy a place and so they're now going to be renters for a while. If you're in it for the property value, a duplex or a triplex might be a better investment in terms of appreciation, but you won't be able to get any real income off of the rent in all likelihood. Once you start making money you might think about single family homes too. I have a friend who has 4 or 5 homes that he, his brother, and his parents all went in on. He could have had one or two that he did all by himself. They rent via an intermediary company to retarded or otherwise incapable people. They get $500 per room and there is a caretaker who comes in and cooks and cleans and takes care of the residents every day. It's a stable way to rent, they don't throw crazy parties and tear the houses up, and the rent they get covers the mortgage in all of his investment properties (but they had pretty big down payments.) 3. NICE JOB REDUCING YOUR DEBT!!! That's fast, and very impressive. One thing that really helped me though, if you're trying to save up a down payment, do not wait until all of your debt is paid before starting the saving. I was doing that for a while and made a similar dent in my debt but could never quite get there, then (and I really hate to admit this) my wife and I were watching Oprah and she had some investment guy on and he said this wait-until-you-pay-everything-off-to-save thing was a major pitfall. Following his advice we started saving immediately and got together our down payment and although we still have some debt, we're comfortable with our payments and happy with our home and the tax break we get from it. 4. Now is a great time to buy stocks. Not exactly the best idea if you want to sell them for the down payment, but you might want to sock a little away for that too, unless you're a real pessimist and believe the market won't ever rebound.

Your diagonal needs to be in the plane of the main hoop if I remember correctly, and your shoulder bar bends back for seat clearance. Therefore, the diagonals should not intersect the shoulder bar. I'd just run one diagonal from the bottom right connection of the hoop to the left over the driver's head. There are specs as to where to place the diagonal in the rulebooks. Also, your supports that go from the hoop back to the strut towers shouldn't have a bend in them. Before you go any further you should get a rulebook for whatever sanctioning body you're going to run with and build to their specs.

I would do what the E Production racers do. Or, if you want to go all out, send your head to Sunbelt and tell them to do what they did to Zredbaron's head.

Put it under the hood or in the back under the car. You're really not going to be adjusting it very often once it is set.

You could make it a 2 way by having grooves at the same angles on both slopes, or 1.5 way by varying the slopes. I would think 1 way would be theoretically possible with a straight vertical groove, but I don't think it would function well in practice.

I think you have this part backwards. It's easier to produce a greater force on the case by riding up the shallow ramps than it is riding up the steep ones. The shallower the ramp the more aggressive the lockup will be. I'm pretty sure on this bit. I also had a thought on the clutches. I don't think they're necessary for the action of the diff at all, but are probably there to provide a replaceable wear surface that the drums can rub against.