JMortensen

Please use descriptive titles. People won't know what "clutch!" is about when they're searching the archives. There's been quite a bit of talk about aftermarket clutches here. You might try searching yourself...

Yes, with a spacer under the rear.

If you want to use short struts in a full length housing the proper thing to do is put a spacer UNDER the strut housing. Then at least you can get the whole range of motion out of the strut. What this does is effectively makes the strut top out sooner and bottom out like a stock strut would. While droop limiters can be useful for race cars, this part is more for people who can't figure out how to make a spacer underneath the strut but want to use the short insert for whatever reason.

Do we have to get bitchy on a Monday? Let's take it down a notch and try to be constructive.

These motors really seem to like these cams that peak at about 6000 rpm. Is it just valve springs that are required to spin them to 7000? You'd be able to make better use of the power if you could get to 7000 safely...

Usually the OS Giken head comes up right after somebody gets their first look at the How to Modify Your Nissan/Datsun OHC Engine book. It is listed in there with a price of $10K. So first they usually post if anyone has seen it. Next they get the bright idea to ask if anyone has one for sale. Then the figure out OS Giken is still in business, and try to start a group buy on the head. This inevitably never goes anywhere, and it's just an annoyance to those of us who have been watching the same thing happen over and over and over for years. It's especially annoying on this site because this is the site dedicated to engine swaps and you can get a hell of a lot more for your money swapping something else in the car. There is also the inevitable incorrect info surrounding this head, confusion with the LY head, etc. Search OS Giken and you'll see it come up again and again and again.

I ran the Illuminas on my car with 200/250 spring rates and never once had a passenger complain about the ride. Drove at 1 or 2 on the street turned it up for autox and track days. It was very comfortable on the street. Things like ride quality are subjective.

I'm sure with all the Z clubs in Texas rounding up an L28 shouldn't be too hard at all. You might try a WTB ad here and then try a club based in your area. We have a ton of members from Texas and who knows how many of them have swapped in a V8 or SR or RB and have an L28 sitting in the garage. I would think it would be much harder to find a crank than to find the whole engine.

You can use L24 rods in an L28 with a custom piston and get the same rod ratio, but have an L28. Arizona Z Car used to sell forged L28 pistons that had the pin height setup to use L24 rods, and you can always custom order them. I agree that Rebello's hp numbers are a little optimistic. They're also crank hp numbers, not whp, but there has been a lot of talk about them being optimistic in the past. I don't think 200 whp would be too hard to do with an L24 and keep it relatively streetable but why give up the extra power that you could have? You might try to find an L28 locally, just to see if you can. I expect they'll be coming out of the woodwork. You've never really explained WHY you wouldn't want an L28...

That's pretty much it. Tire size, gear ratio, diff ratio, and engine power range. There have been some threads on here as to how to choose a diff ratio previously. I think the general idea is that if your engine makes peak power at say 5000 rpm, you'll want to change gears a bit above that, say 6000 rpm. Then if the trans is geared right you'll be driving over the hp crest of a dyno plot in each gear without falling too far down the hill when you jump to the next gear. Diff ratio is then about getting the right top speed or trap speed based on the rpm range, tire size, and trans ratios as described above.

You have it correct as far as multiplying the trans gear and the diff gear to get the actual torque multiplication effect. In terms of changing the diff, it will affect all of the gears, because as you said, it's the gear ratio in the trans x the gear ratio in the diff. Although this site is more about speeds in each gear, if you think about it in terms of torque multiplication = getting to the next gear faster, you can play with the ratios and see it in action here: http://www.geocities.com/z_design_studio/

This is what I did. I sent Dan's jpeg to a local cage builder and went and picked up the bent main hoop. Worked great, the hoop was TIGHT (the way it should be) to the sides of the car. I left the length long and trimmed to fit. As for the tubing notches, I just used the program the other day for the first time. It is WAAAAAY easier. Sometimes you have tubes coming together in weird angles and can't do that, but if you can by all means go for it. I measured by using tape to simulate the tube and a digital protractor to get the angle. Worked great. If someone does use Dan's tube specs, be aware that paper towel rolls are 1 5/8" ID so they'll plug right onto the tube. If you have a weird junction to figure out where the program doesn't work, it's useful to be able to figure out the notch on a piece of cardboard then slide it over the tube and have it right.

I have the same opinion as John about warping rotors. I hadn't traced it down so far as "high quality rotors vs crap rotors" but I have put many a rotor in a lathe and you can clearly see the warp in many cases. My own experience tells me that certain pad compounds tend to warp rotors. In particular, I had issues with my Toyota P/U and Axxis Metal Masters. Warped the rotors three times within about 5000 miles, then I pulled them off and out of frustration went to Toyota and bought factory pads. Drove on those pads for 60K miles, same vehicle, same type of driving without ever warping the rotors. Metal Masters DIDN'T warp my Z rotors, for what that is worth, although they did suck and end up chunking and coming apart after a whopping 5 laps at a track day. Again I haven't figured this out completely, but I'm leaning towards the "if the pad is too aggressive for the rotor material and the type of driving you're doing it will warp it" theory. Classiczcars.com has a more thorough version of the same writeup: http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17905

It's a real bitch. They're spot welded all over the freakin place and the TC buckets are much thicker than the rails. If you're cutting out the old frame rails you might try to get at the spot welds from inside. Just hack up the frame rail to get access.

That one has been an area of contention for a long time. Some people say you need new rockers. Some say you can resurface the rockers. Some say you can run the old rockers. It's a long standing debate. My take is that you can use the old rockers. My rockers are on their 3rd camshaft, no problems.

If they can build the bigger engines to make more power in Japan, they can do the same here. I'm sure the only reason they haven't is because of class rules, and because most of the guys that aren't racing (like the majority of the people here) would rather have a V8 that runs on pump gas than a 15:1 compression L31 that's got a lifespan measured in hours.

I've had very limited experience with pads in the last seven years or so. I had a pad I liked, then I stopped racing. Other than that I've been running stock pads on my GMC truck and my Subaru Outback, so I'm not the right guy to ask. Based on what I've heard from friends and people here, I've purchased Hawk Black pads for my own use. I think for street I'd probably try the Hawk HPS+.

I'd try a different pad with the next set of rotors.

If you're married to the L24, you might do better at classiczcars.com. You'll catch some flak here for not going with the obvious power gains from the larger engine, and this site originated to promote the idea of engine swaps. As far as the gains to be expected, there is an 8% difference in displacement, so you can expect an 8% gain, all things equal. The L28 will give you a 15% displacement bump. A 3.1 would give you a 22% bump. If you're a numbers matching concourse type of guy you're technically "ruining" the L24 since it won't be stock, so you might consider pulling the L24 and buying an L28, then when you go to sell it or whenever you feel bad about not having the original engine you can reinstall it.

I didn't watch the video, but I'd have to suggest that it is a bad idea to post video of yourself breaking the law. I can only assume that "tearing it up" means that some laws were broken. Like John, I've had a bad crash in a canyon. Mine was actually the incident that started me autoxing. Once I actually got to an autox and had an instructor teaching me what to do I was amazed at how much I had to learn and how little I actually knew. Track days are even more of an eye opener. I look back at what I was doing in the canyons and I'm just grateful that I lived through it. I always always always went very late at night. I was a night owl for one, but you can also see traffic coming a hell of a lot better at night. You'll see the headlights even on a blind corner way before you'd see the front of a car in the day, and you'll usually get glimpses of headlights way off in the distance to let you know someone else is on the road. Of course the late night theory once left me climbing out of a steep ravine on a moonless night at 3:30 in the morning.

That is supposed to work harden a cam. It's not normally done on an L series cam, it's more of a V8 thing, and it wouldn't be necessary if the cam was already used.

John's sticky on alignment: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=126789 My sticky on the "usual" suspension mods: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=114631 There is a lot more to suspension than just those, but if you know relatively little they'll get you headed in the right direction. There is really an incredible amount of info here, so if you come across anything you want to know more about, search it and you'll probably find related info.

How much money do you want to spend?