JMortensen

I don't know the answer to your questions. I am not sure if that is just a crappy pic or if they compared the non VG'd Evo to the Subaru. I think you'd have to have a before and after pic for both setups to really be able to compare the effectiveness of one to the other. Right now we're just guessing. I'm not an engineer either, by the way.

It's not about what ONE component does to the drag. It's about the total drag. What I mean is if you put the vortex generator in the wind tunnel, it's going to generate drag. No question about it. But if it reduces the wake drag, you may end up with an overall drag reduction. The vortex generators were not tested alone to determine their effect on drag. But you can buy VG's for semis specifically for that purpose, this too was discussed in one of the older threads before the testing was actually done. I have no doubt that the VG's reduce drag in the end. But they increase drag in their immediate vicinity, as shown by the Mitsubishi paper in pics 11 and 12: http://www.mitsubishi-motors.com/corporate/about_us/technology/review/e/pdf/2004/16E_03.pdf#search=%22vortex%20generators%22 There is also this quote:

I don't think Matt is right about the function of the wing/deflector/whatever you want to call it on the Subaru. The idea is the same, to get the air to more closely follow the body line of the car reducing the size of the turbulent wake drag which sits behind the rear glass. They are just two different ways of accomplishing the same goal. The effect on the wing is the same in that they direct the air down to follow the body line of the car and hence into the wing directly. The effect on drag might be minimally different, in that the vortex generators each produce a small amount of drag, and the deflector also produces drag, but is a larger piece. The deflector might produce less drag or more drag, haven't seen any testing either way. Vortekz, see post #14 here for a windtunnel test showing the effect of the two devices: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=117165

I too measured a bunch of shafts and they were all the same length. So did John Coffey. Compressed length is what's important, and if you got the same compressed length, the extended length would also be the same. One of the shafts may have had some grease at the end that made it hard to extend, or a stiff boot or something and that may account for the measuring difference, but as far as I've been able to tell all the halfshafts are the SAME length, whether they are from a 510, 240, 260, 280 or 280ZX (and probably some other Nissans from the 70s and 80s) I do not believe that they are shortest when at full droop. That's where you can barely get them installed, but that doesn't mean that's where they're shortest. The real test would be for someone to take the time to remove the spring and install the halfshaft and run the suspension through it's travel and test for bind. Barring an actual test, we're all just speculating. Shortening a halfshaft is not a big deal. I figured out what needed doing and then found that Tom (2126) had also done basically the same thing that I was planning on to fix the issue. Here is an old thread that deals with the subject: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=104966 I also have pics of a disassembled shaft in my gallery so you can see what part needs trimming. Tom had it done on a lathe, my solution was going to be to cut the shaft on a bandsaw and tack weld the ball stop on the end. I think both would have worked equally well.

I went out and looked at the pivot bolt that some of you guys mentioned. I had kinda figured on reaching outside and opening the door with the outside handle. Do I still need the pivot bolt if I'm opening the door this way? I can't tell because the one I'm working on is almost completely gutted, and I'd have to take apart a complete door to figure it out...

The 928's, 944's, 924's and probably most other non 911 porsches were wet sump. The 911's are dry sump but the oil pump is inside the crankcase, so not the easiest thing to adapt to another car I'm guessing...

Try a good light source or a rest for the camera phone. It's not really possible to tell with that picture.

I've got a set of doors I'm going to cut and gut. I'm basically thinking of cutting where the blue line is on the picture. I'll then remove all of the innards except the handle and the latch and the one link from the handle to the latch. Never done this before. Does this look right to you?

Well it hasn't tipped over yet and I've climbed into the car with it on the stands many many times. I would not suggest that the car be used as a jungle gym when on the rotisserie. But if you're just spinning the car around slowly or sitting in it to weld something, etc, I don't feel that it is very dangerous at all. Possibly my danger threshold is lower than others'. If someone wanted to use engine stands and make it sturdier all that would have to be done is to slide a piece of tubing through the rear tubes of the engine stands, maybe extending another foot or two on each side to prevent it from tipping. I'm finishing the cage and painting the thing and that's it, so for those purposes I won't bother with beefing up the stands.

Not to mention that us small business owners get to pay both the employer's part of the tax AND the employee's part. I didn't even know that employers paid 1/2 of the tax bill before the employee sees anything coming out of his check. That one was a bit of a shocker, and the only reason it didn't severely strain my company the first year is because I put away twice what I thought would be needed for taxes. I thought I was going to keep thousands of dollars, turns out I was $100 short. Explore the wild side after 50? Sounds like a broken hip to me...

I normally don't have the wheels on, they're just on there because that's how the car was when I picked it up off of the ground. As to the suspension, I've had it on there with varying levels of suspension installed for several years, so no problems there. With the wheels on it's pretty hard to manhandle the car around, quite a bit easier to spin it without them...

The problem with a stock size wheel is that when you need to turn a lot, fast your hand will hit the door sill. I tried a 15, a 14, and finally ended up with a 13" wheel. Yes, a smaller wheel takes more effort and it blocks the top of the gauges. But if you're going to autox or anything like that you'll need the extra room. If it's a street car only I'd go 14".

If you've ever tried to do this job with a floor jack, jack stands, and a bunch of wood, you know it's a big PITA and can be downright scary at times. When I had to get the car off the rotisserie to move it to the new house I used a cherry picker and attached it to the core support. Worked great, but me and a buddy had to lower the back down with 2 jacks while a 3rd guy lowered the front. Even though it was MUCH better than when I originally put the thing up on the rotisserie it was still a little sketchy. So I finally determined that the way to do this job is to use a cherry picker on both ends with load levelers. As it happens, this works really well, is not scary at all, and I was able to do it myself without having to wait for a buddy to get off of work. This time I hooked the cherry picker right to the rotisserie bracket in the front, and I welded a couple nuts into the rotisserie bracket in the back so I could hook it up there as well. Really easy, just lifted one end off the ground and leveled it with the load leveler, then did the same on the other end, then progressively lifted it up a bit at a time on each end until I could slide the stands under. I tried to take a bunch of pics, but my damn camera was out of batteries. I got this one: And then later I had some batteries charged enough to take some more, but I had already taken the cherry pickers off, so I took this one and then figured there were enough other pics of cars on rotisseries that I didn't need to take any more:

That's a good one! Reminds me of the time I had to get a dead car off of the tow dolly but had to park on a downhill slope. Pulled the ebrake and dragged the dolly out from underneath with the ramps grinding, squealing, and dragging the whole way. It was awesome.

Yeah, the show is pretty damn funny. I need to get the movie from Netflix. I hear its basically like the show but longer. Still, that intro is hilarious.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PpmOTKJENQ

http://www.baddogparts.com/ Can you shorten up your sig please BBZ? It's just wide enough on 1024x768 that the pics take up 2 rows. If you make it narrower they'll all fit next to each other and won't be as tall.

If you're just trying to fill out the wheel wells, how about a different set of wheels, or some spacers? Seems like you're going about it the hard way.

I don't think you want that G nose either. It's an IMSA G nose, so it has the wide flares in the front, and I'm 99% sure they're integrated into the G nose. So you'd have to cut that part off and do some major fiberglass work to make it right on a non-flared car. Let someone buy it who wants the whole IMSA package.

The camber in the rear is pretty typical of Z cars. When you lower them the rear gains much more neg camber than the front. Probably because the rear roll center is so high and the control arms are longer than the fronts. That rear camber issue is one of the reasons why it's so hard to get the front glued down.

If I recall correctly they specifically outlawed making your own biodiesel in CA a couple years back. I am not sure if it was because they wouldn't have to pay tax on the fuel, or whether the concern was with the large amounts of methanol and lye being stored in people's garages to make the stuff. Probably both.

They only need to adjust the tie rods to straighten the wheel, so you might have to fight them a bit to fix the camber issue. Yours is pretty far off. Do you have any adjustments available? That is NEG camber, right? Not positive? If it's positive you ought to do something to fix it. If it's negative and you don't have any adjustments you might see if they can slide the crossmember over a bit to try and even it up. I don't run my car on the street anymore, but I'd get 20-30K out of a set of relatively soft tires when I did. Your tires will last a LONG time at 5K per year, unless you're running DOT race tires.