JMortensen

According to wikipedia the FE weighs 680 lbs. We show the L28 at 523 lbs. Lets be generous to the L and say that the transmission used with the FE is a full 150 lbs heavier than the L transmission. So now we're at a total of about 310 lbs heavier than stock. Put this in a 240Z that weighed 2350 off the showroom floor, and it's still a couple HUNDRED lbs lighter than a 280Z. Keep in mind we still haven't stripped the interior or added a fiberglass hood or decklid. If you were still concerned about the weight you could ballast the rear 200 lbs and then you'd be right at the weight of the 280Z, only with an additional 4 or 5 or 600 hp.

Looks like they've been there a while. Is that second one a flathead?

Yeah, the Japanese used the P90a with solid lifters, so when you see one it's usually a used Jap engine. Nice work!

I'm a little confused. How do you figure that the pad gave you a squishy pedal? Did you have Nerf pads the first time, Tim? Or are you just saying that the pads worked better so you didn't have to push on the pedal as hard? Just doesn't make sense to me that by changing pads the pedal would get firmer.

Oh yeah, the math. Well lets say you're adding one gallon 110 to 5 gallons 92 octane. All you have to do is add all the octane points up and divide by the number of gallons. So 92 x 5 = 460 + the one gallon of 110 = 570. Divide that by 6 and you get 95 octane.

I don't think you want to do the driver and passenger window. They're a curved piece of glass so you'd have to bend the Lexan to match. Someone here claimed that it could be done fairly easily maybe 2 or 3 years ago, but I've never seen it. Also, the stuff scratches really easy, so just rolling it up and down and having the Lexan drag on the rubber seal on the outside of the window is going to scratch the hell out of the Lexan. I think you could use the stock rubber gasket in back like my 510 friend did, but you'd still need the straps. On the corner windows I think it's a waste of time. Most of the weight there is from the frames I think, and if you reuse the frame and only get a 40% weight savings on that tiny piece of glass that's not worth the hassle IMO.

The optimum hp isn't always where the max advance without pinging is. I was running right about 35 degrees total advance. The potential benefits of the crankfire as I see them are these: More accurate timing. No slop in the distributor gears or bushings, etc. Basically eliminates all the mechanical slop in the system. Programmable timing curve can be adjusted to suit a particular engine. More accurate timing. Less parasitic drag. Hotter spark (I had assumed) Eliminates MSD. Although I've never had a problem, they have something of a reputation for failing. Don't need "pills" for rev limiter. MORE ACCURATE TIMING! There are things that you can't do to the curve with a distributor also. Check out this post to another board from Dennis Hale:

L28/E31, about 11:1 compression, .490/280 cam, ported and polished (chambers too), 280 valves, 44 Mikunis Yes, that's what I'm saying. I think Dan Baldwin had some hp figures on race gas vs street gas that proved my point. He made about 10 hp less on the higher octane gas.

Come on, do a little research man. The 280ZXT is the same engine you already have with a turbo. The 300ZXT is a V6 that is totally different. You'd have to make custom mounts for the engine and trans and thats if it fits in between the strut towers on a S130. It barely fits in the S30. The ZXT would be 1000 x easier.

If you run more octane than you need you can actually lose power. You can buy AV gas from just about any airport that deals with small prop planes. It's not legal for street use, and you can't pull your car up to the pump, but they usually have self service pumps and you can just walk up with a gas can and fill it. What I did was to keep cutting it with regular gas until I found out what octane I needed to run the timing I wanted and not ping. Turns out in my case it's about 95 octane, so I basically just split it 50/50 with supreme unleaded from the pump and that's it.

I think that if you're using a standard Z strut then a normal 12mm lug nut works, because they are 12mm (x 1.25mm?) threaded and have a 5/8" outside which fits the monoball correctly. That's the way it is in the US, not sure about AU. I went with the MR2 struts and they have a 14mm shaft. I bought the sleeves from http://www.groundcontrol.com and they were cheap. Don't suppose that would be necessary for the guy in Oz, he can probably just have some turned locally, but for US guys that's another option.

That's pretty slick. I appreciate all the info there Paul. This may be one of those things that ends up on the cutting room floor, but if I pursue it you can expect to hear from me again...

No problem. Probably won't be any more vids for at least a year.

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=107028 http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=111396 These should help you out. Just gotta search for the right thing. In this case e12-80 was what I searched for. There's a whole bunch more if you want to use that as a search term, but the first has some good rebuild info and the second is specifically about deleting the vacuum advance.

This might be a bit much to ask here, if so just say the word and I'll dig further on the MJLJ site. I'm just trying to get some of the basics down, because I've lusted after the Electromotive ignition for years. Looks like the MJLJ might just be feasible, but I'm a bit confused as to how to hook it up with Mikunis. There's no plenum obviously to put a MAP in, and if you went straight to a runner I'm not sure the amount of vacuum in one runner would really work. No TPS either. Not sure how you can overcome that. I am pretty sure the Electromotive unit just runs off a map. I don't see a need beyond gas mileage and low rpm driveability to need the MAP or TPS. Can the MJLJ work with only the map? What else is required? You need the coil packs I assume JY on this, but what kind of price do they bring and what donor vehicle for a 6 cylinder, then the assembled box looks like it is $150, trigger wheel from a Ford? or do you have to get a trigger wheel from somewhere else? I assume there is a hall sensor like the Electromotive or similar sensor which you could grab, maybe from the same Ford in the JY? The lack of a rev limiter is a problem, but if it was run off a straight map the ignition could just be retarded at X rpm. That's how the Electromotive unit works, and I've been in a car that hit the rev limiter and it's like hitting a brick wall. I started in on some of the threads on their forum but it doesn't seem to be a very search friendly environment. I did find one thread that said a guy just left the MAP sensor disconnected and ran it like that. Kinda nebulous info there with regards to older carbed applications.

Don't think so. I too never understood why anyone would buy a new points distributor. Like buying a brand new wagon wheel. I'd suggest a NA 280ZX distributor. Do a search, lots of info on distributors for L series.

This looks to me like a R180 with the more aggressive ramps and 2 pinion gears. Heres the ramp part of my R200 LSD. The way this works is that as you apply power the cross pins move forward to back (in the picture left to right) inside the two outer pieces. This compresses the two outer pieces (pressure rings) which puts pressure on the clutch stack. The angle of the ramps can be more agressive or less agressive. Mine is the less aggressive style. bjhines has the more aggressive style: You can see that his ramps are not as steep which makes it easier for the crosspins to spread the pressure rings apart and so it applies more lockup to the clutch stack. It's a little hard to see in your picture, but it looks like the more agressive ramp to me. The only bad part about yours is that it looks like a 2 pinion. I know 2 people who owned this diff, and they both broke it. They both drove like maniacs, but regardless the 4 pinion is stronger. You can check if it's two or 4 pinion by spinning the ring gear and see how many cross pin ends there are. Here is a top view of the case opened showing the 4 pinion gears. You can see the holes for the cross pins around the edge of the case.

Wrong year Taurus??? Just guessing.

First link doesn't work if you're not a member. Comment on the 2nd one. I watched the video and you could hear the wheel scraping, but you couldn't tell on what. There was also some mention of the holes being misaligned. Holes misaligned is pretty bad and I'm glad to hear the wheel manufacturer seems to be standing behind his product, but as far as the grinding I'd be marking the stub axle and the outer edge of the rim and turning the wheel around and seeing where it grinds. If it grinds on the same place relative to the stub axle then it could be bent. Not terribly uncommon for someone to get in a very minor collision and bend a stub axle. Grinding on the same place on the wheel would tend to indicate a bent wheel.

Yep, only starts getting time consuming when you start disassembling stuff that doesn't need to be disassembled.

If you're just doing springs and shocks you don't really have to take anything apart in the rear. You can actually just disconnect the strut top and swing the swingarm down and do it all right on the car. I know I've detailed what needs to be done at least 3 times, so search and you should find the procedure to do this in the archives. You can do the front the same way, too late for you but maybe not for Ron.

Brown-noser.

You need to build a faster race car. When you get into a really fast autox car there isn't so much difference as to not knowing whether the car is going to spin out, the difference is what you're doing when you're preventing it. In one you're artificially getting the car sideways in a power slide causing this sideways condition just specifically for the reason of being in that state, and in the other the car is actually 4 wheel drifting because you're riding just on the edge of traction and NONE of the tires can keep up with the lateral loads you're throwing at the car. Lot of car control in drifting, but there's more technical prowess and difficulty in driving really really fast IMO. Then there are the rally drivers who do it all at the same time. I hate the drifting scene, but come on guys, this is Hybrid Z. We can't play to the least common denominator here (purism). If people like drifting, they should drift whatever the hell they want. Pop, you're right about the Dukes of Hazzard, but it wasn't just the new one that had drifting. The show from the 80's was full of drifting too. They just didn't have 20 series tires on 18" rims on the General Lee that had 8000 in/lb springs and rode 2" off the ground like the 240SX, AE86, etc that are so popular in the drift scene (and repulsive IMHO).

Why don't you just look at some different flare styles? The MSA Street flares are pretty similar to the ZG's in shape, a little bigger by the looks of them, and don't have the recesses for the bolts. Also the MSA IMSA flares, or the Jim Cook Racing flares would work.

We had Capris here. There used to be a really fast one at the autox I used to frequent. Brown Capri that hauls ass. Talk about a sleeper...