JMortensen

That'll be great if you wear a helmet every time you drive the car. If not it might be safer to do without it. This cage in street cars issue has been discussed quite a few times now though, and this is a side track. You're welcome to search out some old threads if you like, but let's keep this one on track with the stich welding.

Anyone else see the latest issue of Race Car Engineering? They're playing with a new Lotus Exige and its rear wing and diffuser setup, last month they worked on the wing height, this month its the diffuser's turn. They moved the exhaust which was hanging right in the diffuser area first. Then they did some mods to the diffuser (specifically lengthening the outer strakes and bringing them about 1.75" off the ground) and got 18.3 percent more total downforce and 10.6 percent less drag! FRONT downforce increased 8% (!!!), and rear 23.7%. They had also played with some side skirts that didn't have much affect before lengthening the outer fences on the diffuser. The article didn't say whether those were left in place for the last test or not. Pretty damn interesting though! Definitely makes me want to at see some testing of a diffuser on a Z before assuming that it won't work.

I loved my 99 Outback. It wasn't a race car, and certainly wasn't fast, but it was a fun car to drive and I did once take it way back in the Pismo Dunes. In fact my wife and I are going to get another one soon. Wagons rock!

I haven't tried blasting with the walnut shells, but I was hoping they would work for that purpose. I can tell you that they're great for cleaning brass in the process of reloading ammunition, but that is done with a vibrator, not a blaster. I'm very interested in this thread because I just bought a cheapo sandblaster and was wondering if I might use walnut or something else (soda?) in it.

Looking at these for the more permanent automatic style: http://www.guardiangenerators.com/Products/Residential/Guardian/Guardian7kW.aspx http://www.guardiangenerators.com/Products/Residential/Guardian/Guardian10kW.aspx I have to see how much they would cost installed, but aside from that anyone have any comments. The one thing I saw that I didn't like is that the engine fires itself up every WEEK to make sure everything is OK. A self test every weeks seems excessive. I'm thinking once every 4 or 5 months should do it. I don't know if there is a way to change the self test schedule, but it seems like a way to sell you some maintenance more than anything else.

An R180 with 4.11 gears is an R180 with 4.11 gears. Who put the gears in the diff really makes no difference in how it drives, unless they do it wrong. You might find some collector somewhere who cares about Sharp's shop touching the diff, but in the end it is just a diff.

Is it coming from the pedal, or the transmission, or what? If you feel it through the pedal I'd suspect that the hole in the pedal is all oblonged out and the pin that goes through it is probably all chewed up too. You can get a new pin and weld the hole closed if that is the case. Make sure you have some grease in there too...

http://www.gounitrax.com/

What is the purpose of this thread again? Unitrax is from all accounts an excellent gear shop. They installed an LSD in your diff, or rebuilt it at one time. So... where are we going from here???

Hmm... automatic and NG sounds nice. I'll take a look at those. I also found this older thread: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=117523 and I have to say it's got me even more confused about how to hook one up safely.

Pretty much any caliper that fits the rotor can be made to work. It will be a matter of making a bracket to fit and correct the offset from the stock caliper mount to wherever it needs to be to fit the rotor. Any machinist worth his salt can make you a bracket for any appropriate caliper. As to direct bolt on swaps, I don't think I've heard of any but you might try someplace that specializes in Z31s like z31.com. The one that comes to mind first is the Z32. I'd be surprised if someone hadn't done that swap yet, but I have no idea whether it bolts up or requires a bracket.

I am in a wooded area with above ground power lines and last year this house lost power for 4 days in the middle of winter, so I'm considering getting a generator before the weather turns. I have gas so gas heat and water heater, and I basically want to run the fridge, the heater blower motor, some lights, and a computer with the generator. I know NOTHING about generators, and very little about electricity in general. I talked to the home inspector when we bought the place and he gave me a couple guidelines, but I'm hoping to get some more concrete info on what to purchase. I think he told me that I needed 5500W or better for this home. He also mentioned a special plug that can be installed by an electrician that allows the generator to plug into the house but protects the house somehow. I didn't really follow what he was saying, but it kinda sounded like a big surge protector. If that's what it is, this house already has a big surge protector on it. We are apparently the first house off of the main power lines and a couple years back lightning hit the main line and burned up every electrical appliance in the house, so at that time all new appliances were installed and the big surge protector was installed. I think the other way to hook up a generator is to fire it up and plug it into an outlet in the house. Not sure how that energy doesn't just get fed back into the grid. So, size of generator is a question, does 5500W sound like enough? Features that are handy to have would be useful. If you know about the plug thing please explain. I'll probably be getting something from Harbor Freight, so it will probably be one of the following: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=94191 http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=3708 http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=91377 http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=55380 They do have others with lower power ratings if that would work. I'm just going by the 5500W suggestion of the home inspector at this point.

Unitrax is the shop in SoCal that John Coffey uses for his diffs. They're a good shop, but they don't make diffs. So maybe they rebuilt the one in your car and slapped a sticker on it when they were done.

Yeah, that pin backing out is a pretty common problem. Especially for drag racers and guys doing lots of burnouts. If that sounds like you my suggestion is to try welding the pin in on your new diff. Fixing that one is not worth it if that is indeed the problem.

Can't quote them off the top of my head, but I know that Austin listed them in his "adding clutches to the R200 thread" and you could search for them also.

Spiders aren't doing anything at all when you're driving straight, they're just along for the ride. It's just ring and pinion until you turn. From the sound of it you'll be needing to pull the diff anyway. I'd suggest you get another one and swap it in, as rebuilding these things is fairly expensive and a good used one is dirt cheap. You should have a 3.90 gear ratio if your ZX is non-turbo. This is all assuming that this is a diff noise and not something else, of course...

With a 280ZX being so easy, I'd just pull the whole diff. What kind of noise are you hearing? Does it match up with anything on these pages? http://www.ringpinion.com/ContentFrame.aspx?FilePath=Content%2fHowTo%2fGeneralInfo%2f%2fDiagnosing_Noise_(Part_1).inc http://www.ringpinion.com/ContentFrame.aspx?FilePath=Content%2fHowTo%2fGeneralInfo%2f%2fDiagnosing_Noise_(Part_2).inc

I always thought the name was kind of funny. If it "grips like a phantom"... it's probably not gripping much. You have other choices. KAAZ, Cusco, used CLSD, used VLSD, welding the spiders. I'd rather have any of those before a Phantom Grip.

We had a tan Ford Fiesta that cleaned house at my old autox in CA. People in Camaros and Vettes and Mustangs and (insert your fast car here) used to laugh at the car when they saw it for the first time in the paddock. Then it would blow their doors off. You should have seen the look on their faces then. Went to the big track with that same club and I passed the Fiesta with such a huge speed differential that I literally thought his car was broken. Nope, the car was fine, it just topped out at about 90 mph. That Z actually looks pretty good, just needs to be lowered, flared, and running stickier tires and the suspension to back it up and I think he'd be quite a bit faster... then again that pretty much describes all Z's.

I wonder if it would be worth trying to put a group buy together. Should get cheaper as the number of axles goes up, right?

I think the answer is that the late 260s and 280s use a different strut housing. Unless they get sectioned a lot, the rear end is higher than a 240, which means that the CV's aren't as compressed. So it is really only the 240s and early 260s that have this problem, and then it's mostly noticeable when they're really lowered. John Coffey has a writeup about the stock halfshafts bottoming on his website, http://www.betamotorsports.com. Go to the bench racing section and you'll see it.

So what did the axles run you if you don't mind me asking?

By my calculations it will take you 133 YEARS at the current pace to catch up to me if I stopped posting now... Congrats on not being a loudmouth!

I assume there was supposed to be more there mark...

Yes. There is a section on this in this post describing all the parts needed: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=114798 Parts needed for this swap are also listed in the same thread. Z31 VLSD is a rare bird. 88 SS models ONLY. The other Z31 LSD is from the 87-89 Z31T (excluding the 88 SS). This is still fairly rare, but much more common than the VLSD. Halfshaft issues are proving to be an obstacle as more guys with big power and very lowered cars are using them. My thought, and I haven't actually done anything with this thought yet, is to move the diff forward. This can be fairly easily done if you use the Ron Tyler style diff mount, and then that also lengthens the CV shafts which alleviates the bottoming issue. I've come up with 2 methods for moving the diff. One would be to bolt or weld a piece of 1.5" square tubing to the mustache bar and bolt the diff cover to that. The second would be to flip the mustache bar around. This might move the diff so far forward that the angularity is an issue. I don't know, I haven't tested anything yet. Unlike the stock halfshafts with their U-joints, the CV's should be able to handle a pretty healthy amount of angularity without binding, so hopefully one of the two would work. Either should be cheaper than machining new, shorter CV shaft centers, which would be the other option...