JMortensen

OK great. Thanks for all the back and forth on this one. I appreciate it.

I gotcha. We're talking about different types of fuel hose then. I was thinking auto parts store rubber fuel line. It's just a carbureted engine so I don't think I need any fancy hoses. I've used some hose like you're describing when fixing a forklift about 5 or 6 years ago. You pushed it onto the barb and that was it. Is there a problem with using regular hose on those fittings?

That's the whole point. The strut tower shouldn't be taking loads in the middle of the bar. It should be taking tension and compression loads, and the heims joints don't allow any movement in that direction. If the bar is taking other loads then what that means is that the chassis needs further reinforcement in OTHER areas.

I'd bet the issue here is as Richard says, subframe mount bushings or semi-trailing arm bushings gone soft. There aren't any adjustments to make in the rear from the factory, but you might have the car aligned just to see where it is at, if the thrust angle is off and what the camber and toe are like in the rear. Then you can replace bushings or go to a slotted crossmember to adjust it from there. Search on 510 sites for slotted crossmember. Basically the same rear suspension as far as that is concerned and they have been doing it for years. There have been some threads about slotting the crossmember on a 280ZX here as well, but not for several years as I recall so you'll have to do some digging through the archives to find the info...

Sorry if I'm being dense, but I'm still not getting it. Screw the fitting into the fuel cell, then push the hose onto the barb. No twisting of the hose, right? I'm not likely to take these hoses on and off very many times... In thinking about it I believe my fuel cell has male ends, so I think I'd need this fitting: http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?autofilter=1&part=AER%2DFBM1512&N=700+115&autoview=sku

Don't take this the wrong way, but you big wheel guys should might want to do some research on how low you want the car to be vs how much suspension travel you'll have. Z's have a lot more problems with bigger wheels than a more modern car would. The bigger the wheel, the smaller the sidewall. The smaller the sidewall, the lower you want the car (don't want that dreaded gap between the fender and the top of the tire, right?). The lower the car, the less suspension travel you have, and the more funky the suspension angles like roll center and bumpsteer get. If you look into it you'll see people going to pretty extreme lengths to make a severely lowered Z with big wheels work. I know Terry Oxendale (blueovalz) has done a lot to his Z to make it work with big wheels. You might also look at some stock bodied Z's with really big wheels first. When the wheels get really big it starts to lift the body off the ground. Great for ground clearance and getting in and out of the car I suppose, but kinda seems to defeat the purpose of lowering the car, which should be to lower the center of gravity in my opinion. Some Z's on 17s and 18s look like they have 10" of ground clearance in some of the pictures I've seen. Just check it out before you spend too much money on wheels...

This doesn't make sense to me. Why would a bearing make at the end make the strut tower bar more prone to bending under loads? Do you think that a suspension link that has heims joints is similarly prone to bowing under a load? How about a tie rod? Let's take it to the extreme. Do you think that the suspension link on a Baja 1000 truck is more likely to bend in the middle because it has heims joints at the ends???

I'd appreciate seeing a picture, thanks. Why would I need a swivel fitting for fuel though?

How about a SEP IRA Mike? http://personal.fidelity.com/products/retirement/getstart/newacc/sepira.shtml.cvsr?refpr=sb004

The 240SX uses a bolt on strut in the front, and a coilover strut in the rear. The 240Z uses a strut insert front and back. So instead of replacing just the piece that holds the spring and shock, aftermarket strut manufacturers would need to provide the spindles in the front and the hubs for the rear wheel bearings in the rear, and installation would be a major PITA. You'd have to pull the hubs up front and pull the stub axles and wheel bearings and spindle pins in the rear to install a one piece strut. That's why the difference.

Because there isn't anything left of the original braking system, so that means there are no metric double flares left in the whole system. The double flares I do have are standard double flares. Plus I know the AN flares are much easier to do and less likely to leak, which makes me want to give that a go. I don't have the hard lines anymore, because I knew there would be enough re-routing going on that I just threw them away. Sounds like this is really what I need to do for the fuel system; just get the AN to barb fitting and use rubber hose. The fuel system should be easy to seal, unlike the brakes. Found this: http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?autofilter=1&part=RUS%2D670300&N=700+400081+115&autoview=sku I did find this for the brakes, which I think looks pretty good but has all double flare fittings. I'm still hemming and hawing on the double flares for the brakes. The same place has a AN flare tool for $55... http://www.speedwaymotors.com/p/999,,_Complete-Steel-Brake-Line-Kit-Includes-Braided-Hose.html?itemNo=BRAKE+LINE

The 240 and 280 struts are all the same. They have different stock numbers, but the inserts are all the same. For the longer 240 rear and the 1" longer than that 280 rear, they put a spacer under the strut. So a 240 rear has a 2" spacer on it and the 280 rear has a 3" spacer on it.

I have a regular flare tool, thanks. I also found an AN flare tool for $50, so that might not be so far out of reach. Previously I had thought the tool ran $150 or something. Thanks for the lead on the fittings.

The BZ3099 is something like 1 5/8" inches shorter than stock. I'm not aware of anything 3 inches shorter for the front. If you have the late 260/280 rears, the BZ3015 should be 3" shorter. You can use it with a 1" spacer but you have to make the spacer, or better yet order up the stock 280Z rear Illumina and then cut down the spacer it comes with so that it is 2" shorter than stock.

I ditched all of the original hard lines so I'm starting from scratch. I've never heard of Granberry Supply, but I'll check for that and see what I can find. Sounds like that adapter piece is what I need to do the AN to rubber hose. Thanks for the tip.

I should have quoted you I guess. I was disagreeing with this statement. A cage will have some fairly long spans and works by attempting to prevent twisting through the structure.

I've been searching and seen the super wazoo cupronickel brake lines and also the AN fitting suggestions. But I'm on a budget. For brakes I have Tilton masters and Wilwood calipers. The master cylinders come with both AN and bubble flare fittings, so I can use either. I believe my proportioning valve has bubble fittings, and I think the calipers said that they have 3/16 bubble flares ends on them. I know the AN's are superior as far as ease of installation and sealing, and I think they are also easier to find/make stainless hoses for the wheel ends for. Seems like kind of a hassle to have to do 1/2 and 1/2. For the fuel lines the fuel cell I have comes with AN fittings for the breather and pickup. I honestly do not know how one goes about attaching a regular rubber line to that fitting, other than to attach a hard line to it and then do a bubble flare and attach a rubber hose to that. I'd love to have all stainless hoses, but it seems like an expensive option and I don't know how to cut make the tubes and attach the ends. Also the Mikunis that I'm running don't have AN fittings, so I guess I would have to either purchase AN banjo fittings or somehow modify what I have to work with them. I've seen them Mikunis with stainless hose before, but I'm not sure what all is needed to get that done. I've done a decent amount of automotive plumbing in my day, but it's always been typical rubber hoses or hard lines for fuel and bubble flares and stock replacement stainless lines for the wheel end of things. Also, I've ended up modifying/removing some of the pieces that stick off of the frame to anchor the hard lines where they attach to a soft line (don't know what that connection thingy is called). I was thinking of attaching the soft line to the hard line, then screwing a rubber insulated D ring to the frame AFTER the connector, so that the flexible part was able to do its thing without flexing the hard line. Anyone have a better solution than that for me? Suggestions on suppliers, tools, methods, etc will be appreciated.

I gotta disagree Tim. Cages twist, and the round tubes' ability to attach at any angle and twist without deforming is what makes it particularly well suited to roll cages. This is kind of tangential to the discussion, but I think you're starting to edge nearer to a round tube vs square tube debate. My understanding of tubing and it's strengths and weaknesses is this (please correct me if I'm wrong): A single bar like a strut tower bar isn't (or shouldn't be) used to take a twisting load. It's going to take a pretty simple tension/compression load. It would be strongest if welded, but that makes it tough to do valve adjustments and pull heads or engines, so it's usually necessary to bolt it in. A roll cage structure is different. The structure of a cage can and does twist. The whole idea is that you want to tie the cage in enough different planes to enough structural members so that the torsion spring effect of the cage will minimize the twisting, and you want the tubes to resist deforming in the event of an impact. You might not think of it as a bunch of torsion springs all tied together, but that's really what it is. For that purpose, round is superior to square, because square tube has less yield strength to twisting and permanently deforms from twisting or from impacts at odd angles much more easily. On a single bar that needs to resist bending at set regular 90 degree angles, square tube is better than round. The square or rectangular tubes we see in a ladder frame which attach at regular angles to each other are stiffer in bending than a similar round ladder frame would be. Round tubing handles compression better than square. Round tubing also bends MUCH better than square unless you've got some really expensive bending equipment. http://coloradok5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87627

Come on guys, keep it civil. We're talking about painting a car with a freakin roller here. If you want show quality you can spend $20K on a paint job. These are guys in their garages trying to paint a car for less than 1/100th of that cost with RUSTOLEUM. We don't need to be told that this is not the ultimate paint job. It's FREAKIN RUSTOLEUM!!! And besides, is a car show going to refuse your entry if your paint isn't perfect? Most likely not if it is the type of show that will let a Z with a V8 or other engine swap in in the first place. These are not concours d' elegance jobs we're talking about here. I can't wait to do this to my car and I'm really excited about the results people are getting using all sorts of cheap paints. Great stuff, very innovative. Keep up the good work.

I just don't think the shift throws are long enough for the chrome gates. You don't WANT your shift throws to be long enough to have the chrome gates. I drove a Testarossa. Got in it, looked around and thought "Damn, this is one expensive Fiat" the leather on the dash was all cockeyed and it just looked junky on the inside. Only drove it a couple of blocks to get it to the shop, pulled it in and tried to pop the trunk and the damn handle came off in my hand with a frayed section of what looked like bicycle brake cable. Then I had to beat the knock-offs with a lead hammer that was all mangled from previous wheel removal attempts, after I finally got the trunk open with a pair of channel locks. Needless to say at the end of the whole exercise I was less than impressed with the car. Oh, and you know those strakes on the side? Makes the sill of the Testarossa seriously about a foot wide. Really hard to get in and out of those stupid things. They sold the car a couple weeks later for $80K...

Keep the politics out of it...

If it's Ground Control chances are the parts will come direct from Ground Control. They have a good reputation, I don't know if the parts are cheaper through them or through sportcompactonly.com, but that's something you'll want to check.

That is a political post. "Just sayin" doesn't make it not political. There seems to be a lot of little slip ups recently, not just this one. EVERYONE KEEP THE POLITICS OFF HYBRID Z PLEASE!!!

Team Nissan, let's keep politics out of it. This thread is about something for sale on ebay. Might want to read the rules again, particularly #7: http://forums.hybridz.org/announcement.php?f=84&a=2

For stiffness' sake you might want to consider an X between the strut towers and the BOTTOM of the hoop. That anchors the strut towers to the rockers. Attaching to the top of the hoop isn't as sturdy unless you tie the roll bar into the roof, even then the roof isn't nearly as sturdy as the rockers. Here's a pic of Steve Parmley's (zlalomz) car. This is basically what I'm going to do (note Steve also has the X to the top of the hoop):