JMortensen

Biggest things to change for turn in: CASTER and TOE. Set your caster to about 6 or 7 degrees and your toe to something like 1/4" toe out (don't drive to the track with the toe set that way, change it at the track) and that car will turn in a whole lot better. The more you get into this the more you'll realize that it all works together and any change you make to one part is going to affect everything else. If you are building a track car you will want to take bumpsteer into consideration. It may not have been a problem thus far, but eventually it will be. A couple years ago I started to get going fast enough that it suddenly became a problem for me. I was running Buttonwillow clockwise like I had before without issue. This time was different though, I'd come over the Grapvine I guess they call it and when the car hit that rise there at the exit of the turn the car would do a really abrupt twitch, almost like an emergency lane change maneuver to the right. Then going through that long sweeper I'd be sawing at the wheel and the car would be taking a steady line around the corner. After that I determined that I needed to fix the bumpsteer. Did the slotting and that was it. Measured the bumpsteer, raised the LCA pivot until it was gone, went back to the track and I could go through the Grapevine foot to the floor and it didn't twitch at all. There is a ton of info on camber mods here and you should read all the stickys and FAQs that concern it, but here's the bottom line for me (and I'm sure some will differ with my opinion): The "best" way to adjust camber is with a combination of adjustable control arms AND camber plates. The reason is that our cars are almost never square so if you have for example -1 degree on the LF and +1 degree on the RF and you redrill the holes, you'll still have a lot more negative camber on the LF. If you install adjustable control arms you would need to adjust 2 degrees on one side just to square them up at -1 degree, so that doesn't work either. Plus when you have them squared up the RF control arm is say 3/4" longer than the LF, so that wheel isn't inline front to back anymore. Making the front track wider than the rear pays off in a big way, so you might want to adjust the track with the control arms for that purpose. With both adjustments available you can set the track where you want it with the control arms, then adjust the camber independently with the plates on top. There are other issues too. Lengthen the control arms out too far (or redrill the holes too far out) and you'll run out of threads on the tie rod ends. Redrill the holes farther out also exacerbates bumpsteer issues. It goes on and on. I'd suggest you do like I said and read the FAQs and all that, then also search the archives and read, pick up some books on the subject, and try to take as much into account as you can. If you're looking for a quick fix I'd take Dan Baldwin's advice, lengthen the control arms 9/16", slot the strut tops (you might be able to even the camber out left and right with the slotted tops). By the way I totally disagree with Dan's bit about rear toe in. In my experience my lap times were fastest with about 3/16" total toe in at the rear, and I tried everything from 0 to 3/8" toe. You can always do the crazier mods later on. At some point you need to decide to take the plunge and go all the way. I started with a pretty mild street car and changed parts and more parts and more parts, I think I've been through 4 TC rod modifications now, 3 front control arm mods, 3 rear control arm mods, etc. If I had known then that this was going to be a track only car, I would have foregone all the BS and went all the way the first time, and I would have saved a hell of a lot of money in the long run.

I had somehow gotten confused when I wrote that FAQ and made a big mis-statement that spacers could be used to fix bumpsteer. They absolutely cannot fix bumpsteer. They change ROLL CENTER. If you look at the diagrams, Rob was showing why the spacer doesn't change bumpsteer at all, and how moving the control arm pivot DOES change bumpsteer. You weren't initially interested in bumpsteeer, you were interested in changing your camber. Moving the pivot up or down doesn't do anything to change your camber. I'd suggest if this is a street car and you're not racing that you look at camber bushings as a cheap way out and don't bother with bumpsteer. If you are planning on road racing then you need to take all of this crap into consideration, and I would worry about bumpsteer and roll center by drilling or slotting the crossmember and then worry about adjusting camber with plates or with adjustable control arms or both.

Gian Bowles's EP 510 was run like that, but it had a Gilmer belt running around a "custom" pulley to a small electric motor. I think the idea was sound, but his was so hacked it made me want to puke when I thought of how badly he whipped my ass around the autox course. I don't think the water pump had much to do with the fact that the car was INSANELY FAST, but nevertheless, it was... My take on it is if you're looking for that last hp or if you have something funky like a radiator in the trunk or something, then consider the electric pump, but if you're just driving around town there isn't that much to be gained and L series water pumps are dirt cheap and super easy to install.

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???