JMortensen

I changed the tip recently on mine for the first time, just because I hadn't changed the tip yet and was starting to wonder when one is supposed to change it... had my MM135 a couple years now, probably been through 15 lbs of .024 wire with gas.

http://www.zparts.com/zptech/articles/trans_swap%20parts/4tobear_specs1.html

You know about 6 or 7 years ago my roommate bought one of those. I remember asking "What the hell are you buying that thing for?" and when I think back to all the times I could have used one... maybe I need to get one myself!!!

I know there have been threads on this in the past but they're probably pretty buried in the archives. I **think** this is what you need: Standard Flywheel: Need to remove the flex plate and spacer from the rear of the crank. Also need to install a pilot bushing. Clutch: Need to have the throwout fork and more importantly the correct collar for the transmission you're installing AND your pressure plate must match the throwout bearing collar you're using. Easiest way to make sure you get all this right is to leave the fork and collar in the trans when you pull it. Clutch and brake pedals: These bolt into your pedal box. Clutch master and slave cylinders and the hard line and soft line to connect them: Pretty self explanatory. No bracing is needed on the clutch master area. That part of the firewall is already beefed up for the brake master. Not sure if the trans mounts or the driveshafts swap out.

I think I should point out that if you're working within the confines of the stock front crossmember, you really can't get the LCA's too far above parralel with the ground. I've seen how low you run your car, Tom, and if you drill a hole in the crossmember as high as you possibly can without the control arm touching the top, I think you'll still be really close to horizontal if not a little below it when you're on the brakes hard. That's my guess anyway from messing around with my own suspension. You can go farther than that with the RC by adding bumpsteer spacers, and that's probably where you're going to end up going if you want the RC higher than you can get by redrilling or slotting the control arm holes.

I haven't seen too many dies, but I have a friend who was making them for a living for a while, and that's pretty much what they look like. He didn't use erasers, I think he set his cutters deeper into the wood and used the wood as the stop. He was getting big bucks for die making, I think it was $100/hr. Takes a smart person to figure out how to cut the cardboard to fold up into a box with tabs and little holders for different parts that go in the box. Not sure how smart you need to be to cut round dial faces...

This post is not technical in nature, so it should really be in the Non-Tech board. It doesn't need to be tool shedded, but moving it out of the tech forums is warranted.

When I first came here it was because the IZCC list didn't have very good answers to my racing suspension questions. I was very anti-V8 at the time too. The more I stuck around the more I realized this place has a metric buttload of information about EVERYTHING Z related. Not just engine swap info, that's for sure, but since coming I've decided to do an engine swap too... I doubt it. I think you're going to be fine with those rates, should work out really nicely. What I'd be worried about is when the front end hooks up so much better the back end may get really loose. If and when that happens I'd look at adding some toe in out back to counter it. I was running 3/16" total in back and that had it pretty balanced with the front in my old configuration.

I did the same. I think I might have had to trim the mounting flange a bit. It did hang down below the core support.

He's talking about running the LONGER rods with a shorter piston. Pete, do a search for rod/stroke ratio, r/s ratio, and any other combo you can think of. There have been some fairly heated debates about the subject. You can also search google and find info for other engines. My take is that it is worth it, especially on a high strung engine, whether that be a high compression NA or turbo with tons of boost. I actually wish that it was easier to use a diesel block on a gas car. Taller block, so you can use longer rods than you can with the L28 block. Search and you'll find what you're looking for...

Here is my take: 1. No consensus. The general theme is you can have a lower roll center (even underground) but the lower you go the more stiffly sprung the car needs to be to control roll. Once the control arm points up from the center to the hub, introducing a side load compresses the suspension. There seems to be a lot of guys in OR who are having really good luck with what would have previously been thought to be ridiculously heavy springs. I definitely want to try some of the heavier spring rates for myself. 2. Raising the TC rod mount promotes anti-dive. I don't have a way to quantify how much of a difference it is going to make, but my car had a lot of nose dive under braking before, so I think it will help. The other reason for doing what I did was to get the TC pivot inline with the control arm pivot. This required the new bracket, and slotting the bracket was in a sense a byproduct of the whole thing. 3. As John says, can't go too long on the LCAs. 4. I agree with the caster comment. This depends to some extent on what tires you are using, some like more than others. I haven't yet hit the point at which I feel that I have enough, and I was running about 5 degrees. You'll see some people have run as much as 7 or 8 degrees. There is a point at which it doesn't help anymore, but I'd have to say caster is the #1 thing that helped my front end to hook up. I am having a hard time believing that you haven't messed with it at all, and even harder time with the fact that you're running less than stock... Cary McAllister (tube80z) should have some good insight for you. He knows his stuff and I know he'll be looking at this thread as it's right up his alley.

I believe MAS Products has a similar set for sale, but they're supposed to be thin race weight type stuff. I've got some rears on the way, I'll post some pictures when they get here, probably late this week...

I think the most important thing is that it needs to match what you have in the front, so I wouldn't be going with a 280ZX rear disk setup if I were you. Go big and turn it down with your prop valve or dual masters if necessary.

I believe I ran .180s in stock retainers on my first engine build, it's been a while but that sounds right. Ran it that way for years, up to 7500 rpms at times and never had any issue with the lash pads or losing a rocker arm or any of that. If your new cam has lift of over ~.470 or so then it is really a good idea for you to get some new springs and retainers, because stock tends to coil bind right about there, it kinda depends on how deep your valves are at that point. The other problem area is with the valve stem seals, which hit the retainers at lifts in the .480 - .490 region. Swapping them out for something shorter prevents that issue. You can get the Ford stem seals from any auto parts store to fix that problem.

Is there a South African ebay?

Sure I'd like pics, you know I'm a visual learner...

Looks like maybe for now I just need to cut the hood latch off...

I could do that, but I'm trying to keep it simple at this point. I don't expect that I'll use whatever mod I come up with to mount the V8, so I don't want to add another tower that I then have to cut off later. Also I have a taller than stock AZC oil pan so I really can't move the engine down too far. Really? Interesting. I've just seen that so many times I assumed it would be necessary. Do you think that's because the John's cars mounts positions the engine a bit more forward than the JTR? I assume there is a difference in the early ears vs the later ones, and I have the early ears, so do you know if one needs removing and the other doesn't? I saw one car, not sure where, but it looked like they took the cheesy easy way out and they actually bolted to the stock motor mount, but with the front bolt in the rear hole. No setback plate, no nothing, just used one bolt instead of two. I think if I were to do that I could use the shorter driveshaft, and I know my bro-in-law Matman has about 10 of them. I'm kinda wanting to get the full effect if it isn't too hard to do though... Yeah, I already snapped a badly modded trans mount, so I can definitely vouch for you on that part. My thought here was that the V8 guys just bolt their trans mounts to the floor, and I have the Bad Dog SFCs. So I figured I could do a simple trans mount that bolted to the SFC instead of the floor. The hope was to use it like a cross beam in the tunnel, which would be an improvement since the stock piece doesn't connect to anything structural. This doesn't part doesn't phase me one bit, although I guess that is something I'd have to figure out later. It might not be necessary with my POS 6-1 header, but if it was that would be a bit of a bummer after painting everything. Maybe I'll just take a BFH to it if necessary. We'll see when I get there...

The TWM is a middle length. The Mikunis have very short runners which makes the turns inside the runners more extreme, the Cannon has longer runners, but their castings suck so a lot of cleanup work is necessary to fix them. The TWM is right about where the old Nissan Comp manifold was for length, and is a good starting point. If I were buying another manifold I'd ditch my Cannon for a TWM. Apparently you need to grind or modify that manifold a bit to get the Webers bolted up, so don't be too surprised when that happens.

I really don't want to solid mount my drivetrain. I could do that fairly easily at this point, but I wasn't planning on it. Just a way to rattle nuts and bolts loose if you ask me...

Yep, and that lends some credence to those of us who have been advocating a buttload o' caster, huh???

I like the suspension pics. That answers a couple questions I had about the old cars. Don't like the asking price. Apparently $275,000 is what they're asking... Why was this in the tool shed???

So I'm getting ready to paint the whole underside of my car pretty soon here (currently stripped bare), and I'm looking at the trans tunnel and the ears for the transmission. My original intention was to leave the engine placement alone, but I know I'd be back in here cutting the "ears" out of the trans tunnel in a couple years, so I'm thinking that now might be the time to do this.Eventually I'd like to do an LS swap, but for right now I'm going to stick with the L6, at least until I can blow it up and justify the swap. I was thinking that I might like to change out the trans mount to make it attach to my subframe connectors, then I was thinking that if I did that I almost might as well set the damn engine back and improve the PMOI. I've seen cars with this done but never really paid attention to how this is done. Without messing with the firewall other than cutting the hood latch off, I think you can move the engine back about 4". I guess the question then becomes how do you mount the engine? I suppose a setback plate would work, although 4" of setback would have me worrying about the plate breaking. It might be fairly easy to box the stock "towers" on the crossmember and then run a diagonal brace from the boxed section up to the plate to reinforce it a bit. I think I need clinical help to cure me of the while I'm at its... In the meantime if anyone has any pictures of engine and/or trans mounts for L6 cars with the engine setback that would be great. Or if you just want to talk me out of it, I'm listening.

Looks amazing! I checked all of your links Darius and none of them seem to be working. I was curious as to how your exhaust is routed...

The speedo cable attaches to the transmission. As long as you're not changing the transmission, you don't need to do anything with the cable. You will need the correct pinion gear as you stated to get the speedo to read right. You can get the pinion from Nissan. $420 is expensive in my opinion. I would expect that you should pay between $150 and $250 for a diff in good condition. Is this the R180 or R200 diff that you're buying? 200SX's came with both. If you're changing from R180 to R200 you'll need some additional pieces, mustache bar and such. The list of what is needed is in this thread: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=114798