JMortensen

You've got this backwards I think. Rims weigh more than tires. Aluminum weighs more than rubber. Same diameter for same diameter the one with more tire weighs a LOT less, unless you're talking about super high dollar racing magnesium rims.

Sounds like a stroke of luck to me.

What are you going to do with the car? If you're drag racing you'll want a larger wheel in the back. If you're just driving on the street, you'll want close to the same or the same size tires front and back. IMHO the 225/50/15 is the perfect size tire for a street Z. Fits under stock fenders with stock suspension and does the job just fine. Get anything wider and you'll start having to roll fenders or go to coilovers, flare the car, etc. Get anything taller and you'll have issues with getting the car low enough to "look right". You'll end up severely compromising the suspension geometry and available travel unless you do some pretty intense modifications to fix these issues.

ezzzzzz, have you considered relocating the diff forward again since you've done the CV conversion? Should be preferable for PMOI.

Sounds like an interesting video. Did you raise the rear roll center to get it to squat on braking? That's the one (and probably only) thing I think semi-trailing arm rear suspension has over our chapman struts. Porsche 944's do that really nicely too; the whole cars just sets down when you stand on the brakes. Of course, if its a bumpy corner entrance the rear suspension gets a bit locked up by the braking action... then I think our Z's still have the advantage.

I thought I should mention one other thing... I don't know how you're doing it, Larry; Cold turkey, Zyban, Nicorette, etc. In my case I did the gum and when those cravings hit hard a couple times it really helped to have a piece of Nicorette around. I'm talking 3 or 4 months down the line without having any nicotine in 2 months or so I still popped a piece of gum. It does help. The Zyban doesn't do anything if you don't have it in your system for 2 weeks or so, but the gum or the patch will give you that relief instantly. Keep some handy even after you think you're through.

Quitting smoking is a bitch, especially if you really enjoy it. Congrats on getting it behind you. I quit twice. Once about 5 years ago, that one stuck for around a year and a half. Then again about 3 years ago, still going and don't think I'll fall back into it again. I only smoked for 12 years, about a pack and a half a day. It was hard for me, but after about a month it got better, then again about 3 months in, then again about a year in. Different plateaus of withdrawal you might call it. I still love the smell though. My sister-in-law smokes and so does her boyfriend. Whenever they're smoking I'm always hanging around downwind. Sometimes I dream about it too. But I know if I have one I'll be hooked again, and as time passes the temptation weakens. Didn't really make me feel healthier and I gained about 25 lbs, but hey, I've got more money to spend on the car and I don't have to pay $4 a pack in BS punitive taxes anymore. I hope you get at least that much out of it too.

I honestly haven't noticed that as an issue, and I've had A LOT of my car stripped to bare metal for over a year now. There is some VERY light surface rust and about a month ago I went crazy with the WD40 and that should take care of it until I'm ready to paint.

Here is that thread: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=106324

The reason why it needs a 100 lb tank is probably because it would burn up the fuel in a smaller tank too fast. I think the cheaper ones don't have as nice a burner element, so they just burn more fuel faster to make the heat.That larger tank requirement was what led me to the Big Buddy I got last year. The Big Buddy is 18,000 BTU's IIRC. It works pretty well. It holds 2 1 lb cylinders like you'd use for a lantern, and that works for about 3 or 4 hours with it on the highest setting. I bought mine off of ebay for under $100 and it was worth every penny. It enabled me to work through the winter here, although I'm sure our winter isn't as bad as yours. It would take my very poorly insulated (holes you can see through to the outside, no roof insulation, no wall insulation, but it does have drywall) 1.5 car garage from 30 to 65ish degrees in a matter of 30 minutes or so. Pretty soon the beanie would come off, then the coat. Then I'd turn the heat down and let it run on medium until I was done. I also put up a CO alarm when I started using the heater. Hasn't gone off yet, but I think it's a good idea regardless. I had previously bought a propane heater that was 60,000 BTUs from Harbor Freight, but when it showed up I found out that it required a large tank, which had to be mounted outside and a big hole drilled through the wall. That would have been the better way to go for a permanent solution, but I didn't want to mar the wall of the house that I'm renting, so that was why I chose the smaller unit. I did also get a propane bottle refill adapter from HF and I've been cycling 4 1 lb canisters through the heater. One of them developed a small leak that you could hear hissing after filling it, so I'll just go get some new canisters when I need to use the heater again. If you search you might find my old thread. I think preith was using one of the larger heaters with the big tank and posted pictures of it, and he seemed to like it quite a bit. I want to say his was in the 22,000 BTU range...

That's a good point BRAAP. I tend to assume that people aren't running the crappy stock FI anymore.

I'd go after aerodynamics too. If you start with a reasonably aerodynamic car and then as was already stated lower it, put on a smooth airdam, cover the wheel wells, tape the seams (I like that idea a lot), run skinnies with high pressure, etc I think that would go a long way towards getting better mileage. Also I can personally back up the ported head, open exhaust, open intake ideas. I did all of those things and also got a high lift short duration cam and threw that into my 2wd 93 Toyota P/U and it got low to mid 30's mileage. That's pretty good for a truck!

I had my suspicions! Besides, everytime I think of Dover it reminds me of Creepshow: "Thanks for the ride lady! Thanks for the ride!!!"

The foothills outside Sac would really be ideal. Close to about 5 race tracks, autoxes every weekend within driving distance, tons of hospitals for the wifey to work at, family there, etc. When we were there a couple months ago we were looking at the real estate magazines and checking realtor.com and the prices were too high by a pretty good margin. Maybe they hadn't yet reflected the real world reality of the market yet, but the only house we saw in our price range was a "tear down" in Auburn for $250K. If the prices fall enough that realtor.com starts showing some good listings, that area will be a primary focus for us for sure. Texas is a possibility. I haven't been to Texas, my wife has, and she didn't like Austin. That doesn't mean that we've ruled out the whole state, but we like something to look at out the window, which can be hard to come by it seems in a lot of Texas cities.

Just completed the whirlwind tour of the southwest. Spent one day in Albuquerque, one in Denver, and one in Co Springs. Impressions: Albuquerque - I liked it a LOT. My wife not so much. Dry, not green, but beautiful mountains and nice scenery. GREAT, and I mean GREAT Mexican food (the Mexican food here in Seattle blows). We liked the East side of town near the mountains. Very friendly people. Didn't go to the Southwest part of town, which I hear is the bad part. My wife kinda wanted to see the bad part of town everywhere we went, I didn't really get that. It's not like we hang out in the ghetto of Seattle. We found a house in Tijera, about 20 miles outside of the city up in the mountains. The house is on 2 acres with a fantastic view and a perfect spot to put up a shop. $285K is towards the top end of our budget, but doable, and a 20 minute commute to UNM for the missus. We also found a house in the Northwest part of town which was in a tract, but regardless it was a nice house and was $220K. In addition to these two we saw some of the weirdest homes I've ever seen. One had a different but equally garish and tacky tile floor in every room including a nice 12" x 12" tile with a portrait of Jesus right above the toilet in one bathroom. Nothing like having god stare at the back of your head while you're dropping the kids off at the pool... The job market for my wife would be tough. She didn't interview here, but the people at the Children's hospital were talking budget cuts and that sort of thing. Albuquerque definitely didn't seem like a big money town, more blue collar than I suppose we're used to. Denver - I didn't like it at all. Too far away from the mountains to have a view in most of the parts of the city that we went through. Wife's work would be in the Northeast part of town, easily accessible by the TOLL highway. I have to look into this toll thing more, but it didn't seem like a particularly good deal to pay ~$7 to get to the airport. Too "big city" for me, no charm whatsoever as far as I could see. You could have transplanted those people and buildings to Anytown, USA and I don't think they would have noticed. There just didn't seem to be anything Denver about Denver. Maybe it's different when you get out of town, but we didn't really get a chance to do that too much. What we did see on the outskirts of town was vast seas of tract homes positioned about 3' apart from each other. Traffic was not good. My wife had an interview at the Children's Hospital in Denver and she can definitely get a job there, no problem. She loved the people there and she was really excited about the job prospect. Colorado Springs - We had really high hopes for this town, and we had a very bad impression after the first drive through. I25 is F'ed up at the north end of town, and it was bumper to bumper at 3PM on a Sunday. Not good. The reason for this traffic is road construction which should eventually improve the situation, but I was a bit put off by the fact that the speed limit is lowered to 45 mph through the "construction zone" where there was absolutely no construction going on for miles. Looked like a speed trap to me. Aside from that we looked at houses near the Patty Jewett golf course. The houses were nice, one had a 1000 sq ft garage, but the yards were TINY. We also looked at houses in the Black Forest area on acreage. One was in the trees, I liked it but the wife didn't, the other was out on the plains, and that one we both liked reasonably well. Apparently it snows a lot more out on the plains than in town too, which means more work clearing the driveway and that sort of thing. The job situation for my wife is pretty bleak in Colorado Springs. Although getting a job would be easy, she wouldn't be able to work with transplant patients, and probably wouldn't be able to focus on pediatrics even. And the pay would no doubt be lower than Denver, which is lower than Seattle. The thing that we really didn't like about Colorado in general was the housing situation. Maybe this has more to do with topography than anything else, but there are just endless seas of tract homes with no focal point. Since the plains are right there they can continue to build out into the flatlands forever, so I kinda have to wonder if the land really has any intrinsic value whatsoever. It kind of reminded me of Vegas real estate. My impression is that a home might be worth a lot of money now, but there's an endless supply of desert. Will it continue to be worth money in the future??? If supply exceeds demand, and there's no reason to stop building... Colorado people, maybe you can help us out and explain what it is about your state that we should love so much? EVERYONE we've talked to has said "Oh my brother/sister/aunt/uncle/son/daughter lives in Colorado Springs/Denver and they just LOVE it there. I have the feeling that we just missed the boat entirely.

.488/262 will be driveable in town with no trouble at all. Stock has already been answered, but another way of saying it is WAY TOO SMALL/NOT NEARLY ENOUGH.

My wife's favorite clean joke: What did the fish say when he swam into a concrete wall? DAM!

In most cases I'd think it should be possible to modify the mounting plate to work with a camber plate. Welded on mounts are better though, so if you don't mind welding on your car that's the way to go. I had some pics, not sure where I got them, of the PDK guys welding on the mounts for their strut tower brace on a red V8 Z car that had camber plates. Maybe someone else remembers those pics and can direct us to them.

That really gets the roll center up there. Are you going to run softer springs? I imagine that would be the reason you did this mod. Looking at the pics looks like you can run some much longer end links on the swaybar now. You know, while you're at it... I like the way you made the jig for the control arm. I'm going to need to see if mine will work. I think I may have some fitment issues. We'll see. Looks like you turned them down a bit? Or at least took the shoulder off the end of the tube end.

I believe it was 175-SR-14, which is 78 series. That's fuzzy memory talking. Check http://www.classiczcars.com. I bet a search would find it very quickly.

Miles has it. The pushrod is too long, so the master cylinder can't retract all the way. This means that the little port to the reservoir on the master isn't opening up, so whatever pressure is in the brake master is stuck in there. What happens is you keep using the brakes, and the fluid gets hotter and expands, which puts the brakes on more, which gets the fluid hotter, etc until you can't drive anymore. If you opened the bleeder like Miles did then it would drive normally again for a while until this whole cycle started over. Bottom line is the pushrod is adjusted too far out. Adjust it back in. You MUST have free play in there, or else this is the result.

The only solid axle cars I've seen "win" at autox aren't really cars, but karts. Aside from that I can't recall a single autox I've been to where FTD was posted by a car with a solid axle. That doesn't mean they can't get FTD or that it's a "bad" idea to build an autoxer with a live axle, just my personal experience. I have, for the record, seen some really fast Mustangs at autox. Have yet to come across a really fast Camaro, but seen a bunch of really fast Mustangs. I suppose it helps that I used to autox with the Maximum Motorsports guys...

Now search "spindle pin" before you dive in, and you'll save yourself a lot of hassle.

Live axle usually = no camber or toe adjustment in back, and lots of unsprung weight. Generally these are not going to be good features for autox. The live axle can handle a ton of power though, so if the guy is looking for a 90% drag car that he occasionally autoxes, then fine, but you don't normally see straight axle swaps as a mod for autoxing.

The pics aren't very good, but I don't see welded chambers there. As to the exhaust port, the only thing I can think of is maybe someone had a round port header and was trying to make it work with the N42 head and that was the best they could come up with...