JMortensen

On a progressive spring you'd want to cut the bottom where the coils are wider apart. If you cut the top that wouldn't have nearly as much effect, so you might have to cut 2 or 3 coils to get the same as cutting one on the bottom, and it would remove a lot of the progressiveness of the spring.

I had considered making something like this too. I had thought of using a piano hinge across the hatch and the turnbuckles as well. My thought was that the hinge might just be flexible enough that it would still function despite the curve at the tail end of the hatch. For the actual spoiler I was thinking Lexan or Acrylic, although sheet aluminum would work too. One thing I was concerned with was that the autox rules say the spoiler must not extend past the body. I would think that would mean that with a 280 the spoiler can extend beyond the rear of the hatch maybe 4 or 5 inches due to the bumper, but not quite as far on a 240. Anyone have any firsthand experience with this issue?

Alex is using more sidewall than you would use on a 17 in all likelihood. My experience in watching the large diameter wheel guys has been that since their sidewalls are smaller the gap between the tire and fender looks larger, and they won't be happy with the same ride height, given the smaller sidewall. Also, the car will be higher with your 17's because the diameter will be larger, so that will also prompt you to want to lower the car further on its suspension, even though the actual height of the rocker to the ground might be the same or even higher. Here is a case in point. This is a post of mine from the last "budget suspension lowering" thread from only about a week ago:

There has been a recent trend of people outright guessing at answers to others' questions. Many posted questions can be answered with a simple, positively correct answer. If you don't know that answer, just don't post. If you think that you know the answer but you're not sure and nobody else seems to be addressing the issue, then at least post with a caviat, eg "I think that you need x part, but I'm not entirely sure". Chances are that somebody here really does know the correct answer and will post it given enough time. When you post your potentially incorrect guess and don't label it a guess, you make it harder for the person asking the question to determine what is true and what is false, and also for the next person in line to find the correct answer via the search engine. Thanks for your cooperation.

That's a good point. The fenderwell is not flat all the way across, it is an arch shape and heads down on the outside to meet up with the stock fender lip. If you have wheels that fill up the fenderwells and have them that close to being tucked, you'll probably be hitting them when the suspension compresses.

Yep.

That is an open 2 pinion carrier, not LSD at all.

They are fresh air vents. If you don't mind not having your vents not function as well, then go for it.

Seal replacement instructions from FSM: So yes, I am sure, and Steve Golik was right. It absolutely, positively is not a crush sleeve, and that was very apparent when I actually pulled the pinion and looked for myself. EDIT--I do think that their recommended pinion bearing preload with the seal in is supposed to be without the carrier installed, which means that measurement can't really be taken with the diff in the car...

The FSM shows how the pinion bearings get preloaded. Here's the basic jist: You've got the two tapered roller bearings with a spacer and shims to set the distance. Less shim = more pinion bearing preload. More shim = less preload. After that is the spacer, which doesn't affect preload at all. All it does is take up space on the pinion shaft between the forward tapered roller and the ball bearing. After that, the roller bearing, and then the seal. Here's the steps from the FSM: So even setting the preload requires you to torque the pinion nut without the seal in place. Once it is set, then you pull the nut off, install the seal and retorque the nut. I just found one better. I'll post the seal replacement instructions next...

Pry from behind. Screwdriver worked for me. I think just about any hook type seal puller you would buy from the auto parts store would also do the job.

We have a very low tolerance for flaming people here. Both of you should stop now while you're ahead.

There is also a FAQ about sectioning that you might want to look at. You're looking at coilovers, sectioned struts, camber plates and stiff springs to run as low as you want without bottoming out. Smaller diameter wheels will help too, although I'd guess that's not the look you're after. Don't get too crazy with the spring rates as the Z is a really flexy chassis. You'll require some pretty serious chassis stiffening mods to run a really stiff spring like you had on your 240SX. Generally we put them in in/lbs rather than the metric version around here, but you really can't go past about 300 in/lbs before the chassis starts to work as a spring. Pick key words from this thread, start searching and reading. It's all there, but we won't spoonfeed it to you. Happy searching.

What info are you looking for? You say you've read about lowering springs, coilovers, I would assume sectioning as well. Do you have a question about those procedures then?

The shape of the gas tank makes the first 1/2 of the tank go really fast in relation to the last half on the gauge. There is a lot more volume in the tank when it reads the bottom 1/2 of the gauge. Also the fuel senders are not the latest and greatest design and they tend to not be accurate, especially after 30+ years of service. There is a little "60" in the bottom right corner of the gauge on the 240s that shows the volume of the tank in liters. I'm not sure if the 280 has this as well.

Those are the NLA Motorsport Auto "IMSA" flares. 3.0, if you're not sure, don't answer the question.

The 240Z was designed for leaded fuel. Running unleaded will eventually cause damage to the valve seats, which can be fixed by installing new hardened seats. It's a slow process and in all likelihood your car has been running on unleaded for the last 20 years or more, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. The valve adjust requires only the 14 and 17mm wrenches and a feeler gauge, don't go looking for shims because there aren't any. The factory service manual is sometimes available for download here: http://www.carfiche.com. A Haynes/Chilton type guide will also have all the info you need for the valve adjust in addition to all the other typical service procedures (setting point gap, etc).

The worry I have is what will happen if it does explode. Generally takes out brake AND fuel lines, as they tend to send shrapnel in all directions radially out from the crankshaft. If you have your motor set back it might get into your feet as well. Stock engine placement is far enough ahead that this shouldn't be too much of a problem. If you haven't seen it before: The HKS flywheel is 10 lbs right out of the box. I've only ever heard of machinists turning cast iron flywheels down to about 16 lbs or so. Beyond that I've been told is unsafe. I'm not a machinist' date=' so I'm relying on the expertise of several machinists who I've discussed it with. I think a drag racer puts a heck of a lot of abuse on a flywheel. Much more than a road racer would do in my opinion.

I have the older helmet. The one negative comment I have is that the headband rips my hair out. I have put a kind of velcro sweatband-ish cover over it that I got from the welding store. It still does it every once in a while when the cover slips a little. Other than that it has worked great for me.

What gauge are you using? When I switched from stock to Autometer I could watch the thermostat open and close. Never had that kind of "resolution" if you want to call it that with the stock gauge. If it isn't a gauge problem then I agree with the above comment that your thermostat is probably stuck. If your cooling system will handle it I'd go with a 195 degree T-stat. If your altitude makes it harder to cool the car down in the summer then stick with a colder one.

I had thought, and I could be wrong here, that Nissan Motorsports sold Tilton flywheels back in the day. Tilton doesn't make L series flywheels anymore, but they are very similar to the Fidanza units, aluminum with the steel friction surface. The HKS issue with the broken teeth is something I have seen before, but never put two and two together. It would be good to get some more feedback as to whether or not this is a common problem. That would be a pretty good reason to avoid that flywheel. Lightening a stock flywheel to 10 lbs is dangerous in my opinion, and you won't find many machinists that will do it for you. I think the best solution in terms of making the engine rev faster with a stock pressure plate is the aluminum flywheel because there is less mass out at the edge of the flywheel where it makes the most difference. The HKS is an iron flywheel, where the aluminum ones use a steel toothed ring pressed on for the starter to engage, so I think they're probably more durable than the HKS unit. If you want to go all the way a flex plate multiple disk clutch setup gets you the least inertia and fastest rev up/down.

I have a 240. When you're tightening struts you want the threads to tighten before the gland nut bottoms on the strut housing. So basically you want one or two threads of the gland nut showing when everything is fully tight. In this case, I'm thinking that I can just section the struts down so that the gland nut threads don't quite bottom in the strut tube. You're right about erring on the side of caution. Last time I made mine about 1/8" too long and then used a washer inside the tube to bring the strut up. Better than cutting too short...

To change the valves you swap out the seats. You can port to match the seat to the head, but the seat needs to be changed, at least on the intake side. Any competent machinist can install the seats and sell you valves.

Bad title. We want your titles to be descriptive so that if someone is searching through the archives they don't have to wonder what's in your thread. Changing it from "Just making sure" to "Dished pistons for turbo build?"

Spirit Garage is the name of the shop if you're talking about the car I think you're talking about.