JMortensen

Did you search? Try searching for EMI camber plate or "biscuit" camber plate. Many threads and lots of good info on them.

I might have to take you up on that, we'll see if I have moved away first. But even before I consider heading out there, I've got to get my car back together. It's been down for 4+ years now. I've also sold my other stick shift vehicle about 6 months ago now, so when it does get back together I'll probably not have driven a manual transmission for over a year, and not autoxed for over 5 I'm guessing... just starting the sandbagging early.

Been down that road... http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=100106

I didn't yet, because it was backordered so I spent that $$$ on something I could use in the meantime. This is the one I'm planning to buy, although I'm open to other suggestions: http://www.speedwaymotors.com/p/6614,,_3rd-Generation-Speedway-Hydraulic-Round-Tubing-Bender.html?itemNo=TUBING+BENDERS

Those bushings adjust both camber and toe in the rear. They do camber only in the front, but every time you move the fronts you have to adjust the toe separately with the tie rod.

I've got some other plans for jacking points, and I just don't think that the size of tube that would fit in that spot would do much to strengthen the chassis. I was planning on running a tube like a door bar just on top of the rocker and tying that into the rocker, so that would stiffen the rocker vertically. Pop, there will be some holes drilled in the boxes, but I'm not going to go quite as crazy as bjhines...

For autox I'd go Power Brute for sure. One thing to keep in mind is that the Quaife and the OBX knock off rub the sides of the worm gears directly on the case to create friction. If the case is made from a softer metal, that ***might*** lead to increased wear. You can always call Reider's competition and see if they'll match the price that the guy at Reider made. I think http://www.differentials.com carries that Power Brute...

Well I still have to finish the cage so I can't exactly abandon the welder just yet. This is just the "finish up all of the grinding and welding underneath the car" stuff so that I can paint the bottom side without having to remove the paint to grind and weld crap on later...

OK, so I went to order a tubing bender to get started on my cage, backordered. Went to get some tube to do the X from the strut towers to the rockers, got ERW tube. Took it back, they had some more DOM shipped, but when it got there it too was ERW. Sometimes things just don't go smoothly. Ordered some 16 gauge sheet to do some gussets in the frame, that came in a week late. ♥♥♥♥!!! Now I finally got the 16 gauge, and I started gusseting the frame rails. I don't really know exactly where to put these gussets. One area which immediately looked weak to me when I flipped the car upside down on the rotisserie was the area right in front of the wheel wells. I knew I wanted to make a gusset for that spot, but the doglegs hang down lower than the frame rail underneath, and there wasn't an easy solution. So I made these little boxes to connect the floor, the frame rail, and the backside of the rocker panels. I think they came out pretty good. The obvious issue here is the subframe connector. I suppose I could have run the gusset all the way across, but I figured that would make it too flexy since it is relatively thin sheet, and if I went thicker then it's a lot of weight. Now I'm looking at it thinking maybe something should be done to hook the two directly together. I have enough square tube to do that, or I could do a flat piece of sheet from the top of the frame rail to the floor all the way across. On the other hand, it's probably strong enough as is. So I guess for other gussets I'm thinking pretty much anywhere that two frame rails together I can make a wedge shaped piece and weld it in the corner. Is there anything extra that should be gusseted, or anyplace that needs more reinforcement than I've already provided? Pics:

Not to mention the crank is spinning in a vacuum or at least low pressure in a properly vented crankcase...

Search "chassis stiffening" or "chassis bracing" and you'll find TONS of info on this subject. I think you can put a lot more load on the chassis turning it than you can with a big motor, and I've seen enough cracked B pillars on Zs with stock L24's to back that up. Until someone actually does some scientific tests of deflection we really don't have a good answer to this question. So it becomes more a matter of degrees. Do you want your chassis extremely stiff? Do you care? It's all up to you. I can tell you that the difference when adding a strut tower bar is night and day (if you like to turn). When I used to race the guys at Maximum Motorsports they did test the amount of flex on the Mustang. One of the guys who worked there told me that they made a rig where they could put torque to the crankshaft and then measure with dial indicators the chassis flex in various places. Basically it was kind of like a long breaker bar which they would use to put torque to the crankshaft. I can't remember much about what they found, other than I seem to remember that the transmission tunnel flexed almost 3/8" at 350 lb/ft. Then they made K members and subframe connectors and added different roll cages and other pieces and retested.

The 2.7 from the mid to late 70s is the one with the (deserved) bad rep. They had problems with the smog equipment running really hot and causing problems with the heads. In my experience the early to mid 80's 911's are super easy to work on, easiest of all of them in fact. When I look under the hood of the Z32TT it just looks like 10 lbs of ♥♥♥♥ in a 5 lb bag to me, then again, I never worked on them, just checked out the occasional one that showed up at autox. Not to say Porsche didn't squeeze their engine into the 911, but of the two the 911 is the much less intimidating of the two to have to do regular maintenance on. If I had to guess I'd say the Z32 is the more forgiving car to drive. The 911 is not very forgiving. Personally I'd probably opt for the 911. Better yet, take katman's advice and build an older lighter Z car to drive for fun and get a boring A to B car to commute in.

katman wants to know if you are going to be road racing. Judging by your last post maybe you'll be street racing... Road racing is done on a road course like Road Atlanta, Laguna Seca, PIR, etc. Drag racing is done on a drag strip. Street racing is illegal drag racing done on the street. The sanctioning body katman is talking about might be SCCA, NASA, NHRA, IHRA or something like that. They all have their own rulesets and require different specs for a roll cage. You need to start by figuring out what kind of racing you want to do and which sanctioning body you're going to run with, then you can get the specs necessary to build a legal cage and then you can go from there. Right now I'd guess you still need to do a lot of research...

Why do you always seem to argue the wrong point Mike? Mike Kelly isn't saying that you can't disagree with an admin or anyone else. That happens quite frequently. It's not "These10guysaregoingtotellyouhowitis.com". The "goal for the site" that Mike Kelly spoke of is what they argue about. They argue that if it isn't Nissan it shouldn't be in a Z car, or that V8's are old technology, or that any variation from stock is some kind of sin. We don't accept that kind of closed-mindedness here. Has nothing to do with disagreeing with the admins in a general sense.

For what it's worth Max, you can install coilovers without sectioning the struts. Sectioning just allows you to lower the car further and still have some suspension travel.

You can get a lot more crazy than that with the suspension in B/SP. It sounds like it would be a fun car to drive, but probably not terribly competitive. I guess the question is how competitive do you want to be and how streetable do you want the car to be? I'd stick with the stiffer springs and the lighter swaybars, and I would also definitely go with the Konis (yellow, not red). I've run Illuminas for years and I'm not happy with them, unfortunately cost has kept me from going to something better. When I do it will be Konis or Bilsteins. There is a video of the B/SP champ from 2001 here if you want to see what they can be capable of: http://www.siastuning.com/Video's.htm

I used a C-clamp to compress the bushing, then levered the strut in which pushed the C-clamp off. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. Did you look at putting zerk fittings on the outer ends of the control arm? I think that is well worth the time and effort. Those outer bushings are SO tight, if they're going to squeak, its going to come from there. Here's a pic:

Wouldn't adding a resistor just make it quieter? I like it loud so that I can hear it when I'm in the garage working on the Z...

What are you talking about dude? Gas shocks are hydraulic. They just have gas in them to prevent foaming of the hydraulic fluid. Struts leak when the seals go bad. Period. If this guy has a leaking strut, then that's what he has. I think maybe you do need some teaching...