JMortensen

When I bought my current Z in 1997, I did it because it was a CHEAP, light, easy to modify autox car. In that order. Now that they aren't cheap anymore, if I were looking for a car to mess around with and modify/race, I wouldn't choose an S30. Probably go Miata, BRZ, or 350Z. The S30 downsides of rust, age, crappy handling out of the box, and hard to get/expensive parts makes it a loser for my particular purposes at today's prices. YMMV.

I had them done on my E31, didn't do it myself. No problems. If you think about it, a LOT of heat transfers from the valve to the seat. It wouldn't make sense for that area to be really thin.

Yep. Nicely done.

Agree with Richard. The huge attachment point of the upper frame rail and its connection to the the cowl which is a torque box is an important part of the already weak Datsun structure. If you're going to replace it there needs to be a load path, can't just weld a plate to the firewall and then run the brace off of that. Running it to the A pillar bar of a cage, which is then reinforced by door bars is a good way to handle it if it needs to be removed. Grannyknot's mod looks fine, but I would weld the original frame rail back to the tube that he added, so both are structural.

I signed up, then got into the Monroe autox which is 8 miles away and gets 14 runs, then it rained so I didn't go. What a disappointment.

That "put it back where it was" suggestion is a bad one even for a diff that has a crush sleeve. The R200 has no crush sleeve. The spec is RFT, I want to say it's something like 150 - 200 ft lbs. I always use red loctite on the nut the put my impact on 5 and hit it, empty the compressor until it fills, then hit it again. Never had any issues.

The VIN is stamped on the firewall near the brake master. Above IIRC. You'll see it if you look for it.

Sounds like a turbo to me...

I bought a db meter yesterday. Going to do a couple runs up my private drive and see if I can't get where I need to be with the trapps. Also bought a head and neck restraint, so if this doesn't work I'll go do a track day and not have to worry about noise.

Agree on front camber, needs more if you're getting serious on the track. More caster would be nice too, but there are issues with tire/airdam clearance that pop up pretty quickly.

Front looks a lot better without the square headlights! Really brings it around! What are you going to do for lights?

My build thread is old and lots of broken links, but if you search just about any topic here, I'll have a thread on it. Tires are Formula Atlantic rears, so they are 15 x 13.75 Hoosier slicks on 15 x 14 wheels.

Having some issues with my mufflers. I was too loud last time, so I repacked with ceramic wool, then added supertrapps on the tips. The supertrapps are getting plugged by the wool. Took wool out, will replace with stainless scrubble, but that means that it won't reduce as much sound. I think I'm going to try the local autox in Monroe, WA as it's about 8 mi from my house and if they say I'm too loud it's not 4.5 hours driving to figure it out like Packwood. The Monroe autox is at Evergreen Speedway. It's a 1/4 mile oval track, and they run it like a tiny roval. No cone shagging, supposed to get 15 runs, but entries are limited to 70 people.

Just checked out your instagram. Looks very familiar, but you definitely did it better with your mesh wire. I taped over the wire frame that I made and it was a PITA to get the level right. Very nicely done! I'm also really impressed with your suspension uprights. So many of them are just thick steel flat uprights. Yours are much more sophisticated. I'm sure based on the rest of it that you have all your geometry and FEA calculated out. It looks like it's really done right. Again, very nicely done!

The bar ends wind up forward of the control arm holes. Shimming the bushings back from the uprights fixes this.

Not seeing anything that would cause a dead feeling in the wheel, but IMO that alignment is short on neg camber in front and heavy on toe in in the back for track use. I am not a fan of the 1 1/8" bars, would swap for 1" if I were you. You don't mention a rear bar, but with lowering springs I would run a 1" front and the ST rear bar that attaches to the uprights, and then shim it back 1/2 to 1", whatever fits best. Removing stiction from the sway bar bushing may make the suspension less stiff, but it also makes it smoother which means that the sway bar will resist in a constant way, rather than resist/release/resist/release, etc. When I built my suspension I went to great lengths to eliminate stiction in every way I could, as that makes the car more consistent and allows the suspension to work, and the wheels to follow the pavement better in bumpy turns.

Lots of us built our own, nothing wrong with that. I would suggest that you set up your arms so that you have a minimum amount of threads showing, so if you want the front arms to give you more camber, make them 1/2" longer or whatever with the rod end screwed all the way in, rather than making them stock length and then screwing the rod end out 1/2". I like the idea of using an inner tie rod for the TC rod. If you use a rod end the clevis you make for it will take up some room and you end up with a shorter TC rod which is not ideal. Not the end of the world, but not ideal. The TC rod does happen to be just about exactly the size to run a 5/8" die down it. I did that on a set, then ended up making something from scratch, but I can tell you that it does work.

I've got Adam's book. I actually ended up with a roll cage that was inspired by the balsa testing he did. Fig 12-14 on p90 if you're interested. I thought Staniforth's Competition Car Suspension had more info on how much to use and why, but YMMV. In any event, here is the thread where I showed what I measured when I moved the rack back and forward, used longer and shorter steer knuckles, etc:

My control arms are very slightly wider than stock, but yes, the main thing is the 15 x 14 wheels. I was surprised at the relative lack of difference that rack position had on Ackerman. When I set up the ps rack I had to move it forward. Prior to that I had a manual rack which I moved backwards as far as possible. Moving the stock rack back about 1.5" yielded another degree or two of angle change at full lock, so in the normal driving zone had almost no effect. Moving the new rack forward about 2" from stock basically turned it into a parallel steer car. As you say, the dynamic characteristics is the interesting variable. I don't know if there is a way to get this setup to have better Ackerman characteristics or not, and bumpsteer was pretty well managed before, so it will be interesting to see how that works out. I did have a friend with a 510 who went from stock knuckles to ones that were bent for Ackerman and the turn in on his autocross car was vastly improved. I'd like to have more Ackerman if possible, but I think it's really hard to do with the stock spindles. Cary has been super busy but is thinking he'll have something modeled in a couple weeks.

I'd get obliterated in EM, although I probably won't fare much better in XP. Ideally I'd like an open class where cars were divided on power to weight instead of displacement. Can always just run for time. It's more about making the car fast and improving my skills than winning a jacket.

Ooh, tuner challenge! That sounds like the ticket: open class racing. Would allow for better wing placement, paneled bottom, diffuser, etc...

XP

Add "both" to your poll. I am going to try for both and have no preference one way or the other. Only issue for me is I was over the sound limit last time, so I might have to spend my time screwing around with my supertrapps instead of socializing.

I had a machinist set up a cam for me and he checked a couple different springs and landed on Schneider's as having the best seat pressure for my .490/280 cam. The springs and retainers are easy to come by.