JMortensen

I haven't done the shave and shim deal FWIW, but the whole idea behind it is to shim the cam towers up and use the longer stemmed valves to retain the geometry so that you don't have to mess with the lash pads. You should be able to do the same thing with the lash pads to get the geometry back to stock if you want to keep those valves. The only things that I would be concerned with are excessive seat pressure with aftermarket springs or coil bind with stock springs, and valve retainer to stem seal interference.

Put some poly bushings on the rear control arms, or G Machine inner bushings and poly outers. If they still rub, get a smaller diameter tire.

If the strut blows it generally sprays oil all over the wheelwell. Looks like someone took a squirt gun and blasted the well inside.

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=113968 That shows John Coffey's and mine (well the brackets anyway).

I thought strut tower bars were a ricer thing, so it was one of last things that I did to my car. I still think that if you open the hood of a car and the first things that pop out are Nology wires, a CAI, and a polished strut tower brace you have a pretty good chance that the car is owned by a moron. But, I can say that the strut tower bar that I made did a LOT to improve turn in on my car. It was definitely worthwhile. As John said you'll notice it more with a good suspension setup than you will a worn out old stocker, but I would say it is a more worthwhile modification on a ZX than a CAI for sure.

It has changed. I missed it too, but Larry is right there is no limit anymore.

Well that's a bit different than what I was thinking! Sorry for the bad info.

In the Volvos it didn't cause any harm other than the car was a slug off the line (as if a 240 with a working kickdown cable could be called anything better).

I'd just go with aluminum for the crossmember bushings. You're not getting any benefit other than noise reduction from using soft bushings and it lets the suspension wiggle around under the chassis when it's isolated with bushings of any flexible material.

I would assume it's a kickdown cable that he's talking about. When you drive an auto car that doesn't have an electric transmission controller and you step on it, you can actually feel with the last little bit of gas pedal a little click. This is because there is a cable from the throttle down to the side of the trans, and when you stomp on it it manually downshifts the trans. When I worked for Volvo we changed a lot of those on 240s and 740s IIRC. With a broken cable you'd stomp the gas and the thing would go to 3rd gear or 1:1, but would go down to 2nd gear to accelerate. Made the car a real slug.

I think this guy wants to PORT his manifold, not port match it. I mean I guess you could call it port matching, but if he's going to a bigger TB it's not the usual 5 second shot with a sanding roll type of port match. He's talking about hogging it out to the 60mm. If I were to guess, I'd say that probably IS worth taking the manifold off.

EDIT--If you have pictures related to this thread post them here and I copy them and post them to the Hybrid Z server.

Something about the way that pic is attached isn't letting me post it correctly. Can you just post the pic in the thread without the attachment?

I'm going to edit some of these posts, so if you're wondering where your post went I modified it. The thing is I want this one to be free from speculation because I'm going to use it to write the FAQ. If you have a question that isn't about the accuracy of the original post or doesn't expand on the original post, please start another thread. I have a 200SXT longnose R200 diff with 4.11 and the Z31T CV shafts will work, I can verify that one. Zmanco, yours is gone because I've never been able to verify that the 200SXTs ever came with LSD. I don't think they did, despite references to it that you will occasionally find on the internet.

Got it, thanks.

Originally your 280Z with an auto would have had an R180. If you have an R200 now, you should be able to do like you said and use the KAAZ or Cusco diffs. The way the Datsuns put the power down is such that they often will leave two stripes with an open diff, in fact lots of people think they have an LSD just because they can do a two stripe burnout. It's just a function of the IRS suspension.

Got a present from UPS today! Monoball holders! I'm headed out of town this weekend and won't get a chance to do anything with these for a couple weeks, but here's what I can tell you right now. These look like they were machined from a 1.75" OD .215" wall thickness piece of pipe or tube. They are just like we had supposed we would make the adapters back on page 1 or 2 of this thread, except they back cut the step inside (saving weight???). The monoball slides in and then is retained by a snapring. The monoball is not a tight fit in the holder, so beware of that if you're super anal. I don't think it's really going to matter alignment-wise, and if it makes noise in my racer I don't care. Dimensions for the sleeves are 1.930 and 2.25, and the dimensions for the monoballs with the reducers are 2.25 and 2.53 respectively. So that means that the spacers are different lengths with respect to the housings. Now I just have to sit and look at these until I go on vacation... you can too:

That's really good info John, but I don't know that I want to go that in depth on this thread. I was thinking that when I get those clutches that Phyxius had made for our crappy version, I would take mine apart again and get some better pictures. Then I can show the original crappy version, the upgraded with new custom clutches version, and your version on a different post. I'm afraid that if this thread gets into too much minutia people won't read it. Hopefully then all these faqs will get tied together and be a cohesive unit, so you can move from one to the next to the next...

bjhines and 2ManyZs, does that update look correct and accurate to you?

I know I've read about the K model before, but I can't remember what the deal is. Is that for the Subaru R180? Can you make the pictures smaller and give a better description of what's going on there?

Thanks for the support guys. I was hoping people would add more info and pics and that sort of thing, and then we would make the more thorough version the FAQ, that way I don't have to keep adding to one post and then the other. Pop, that's the kind of thing I'm looking for. I updated the original post, thanks!

I agree with the other guys, and would also suggest that it may be that the strut is loose in the housing even with the gland nut tightened all the way down. This happened to me. The gland nut was tight, but the strut was still loose in the housing. The solution is to put a shim (like a thick washer) under the strut housing. The idea is that you want the gland nut TIGHT with 1 or 2 of the threads showing on the gland nut.

No it's there under Backhalves/Live Axles. It's not the most detailed, but it's kinda hard to be real detailed on that one since I've never done it myself. I bet you and mike kZ and a couple others could fill the rest of us in.

Interesting. I must have been talking to a bunch of cheaters... or maybe they were just track day cars that started life as ITS cars.