JMortensen

Well I already did the X today, but I used .5 x .5 x .065 tube so the weight is probably 2 lb or so, using a bit more than 4 ft. I think the strength should be enough to prevent issues with the radiator at least. I was thinking the same thing about the brace from the strut tower to the rear of the frame rail, but then I have that braced already in that plane to the rocker tip, so it's a bit redundant. I was talking to Cary about this and I'm going to try and figure out some more strut tower brace ideas, but that will have to wait until the engine is back in the car, which is a long way off for me. I had also thought about doing a clamp style rad mount. I might still do that too, but I hadn't ever had any cooling issues with the standard 3 core brass radiators, just kept cracking the tanks, so I wasn't sure that I wanted an aluminum radiator which would require that type of setup. This way if I buy a bolt in brass radiator from a local shop I won't worry. I don't think what I've done will hurt at all, and I'm pretty sure the radiators will live a better longer life. If I wasted a couple hours, well, worse things have happened. We should let this thread get back to bjhines's project. I think I've jacked it enough.

My buddy has been running this car at NASA HPDEs without getting hassled: Imagine the look on the new Lotus Elise owners face when this car passed him on the front straight at Laguna Seca...

You should have one anywhere, climate doesn't matter. If you don't your oil will take a lot longer to warm up. Cold oil doesn't lubricate as well as hot oil. Think of how long it takes your coolant to warm up without a thermostat in some cases it doesn't at all. Same sort of thing.

Later ZX (some say all ZX) calipers are notorious for the ebrake freezing. There is a good possibility that the problem is with the caliper. Cutting the cable just means that you now have to replace the caliper AND the cable. Park it in reverse and turn your wheels into the curb if you're on a hill. Carry chocks if you're going to park on a steep hill.

Tough to say from this end, sorry. If the AFRs are OK then I'll revert to my previous suggestion of trying the bigger cam.

Did you just put the Webers on then? Are they tuned? You might be way too lean at cruise. There are some good threads on tuning Webers here that might help you out. I guess I ASSumed that you had them running correctly.

I think this is all a matter of priorities, and from that last post I see that Phil and I share roughly the same priorities. Go fast = important. Look good = less so. That said, after a wet sand and buff I think that thing is going to look pretty good!

OK did some thinking, some emailing and some searching and I need to amend this a bit. IF, and that's a big if, you can get the strut towers to keep from moving via strut braces and all that, then bracing forward of the sway bar mounts isn't really necessary. The sway bar mounts really need some structure and they are in front of the strut towers, as we've seen with bj's and my project, the sway bar can really tear up the front rails. All the loads come into the frame rails via the suspension, so if it's possible to make the chassis stiff enough to support those loads then there shouldn't be a reason to need the big X in the front. So I am going to downsize my X and it's placement will be made easier as it's purpose will be to extend the life of the radiator and not to strengthen the frame rails, and I'm going to try and tie into the upper frame rail from the lower section of the crossmember, similarly to the rocker to upper rail bracing that I've already done.

Be careful with a straight bar behind the seat, unless you're 5'8" or less you might not have a comfortable seat position after it's installed. Most guys use a bar that is curved back to allow more adjustment on the seat. You can refer to 240hoke's website to see his curved bar on his S&W cage.

The cam will definitely help. It's worth a shot since you already have it. That may be enough to solve the problem. If not, there's always a bigger cam. The lower compression ratio will cost you power particularly down low. Shaving and shimming will get you back to where you are now with respect to compression and hopefully the quench will help with the detonation. I haven't actually seen anyone quantify exactly how much quench is needed to prevent detonation. I think this is one of Dan Baldwin's problems with the quench issue, and at least in that respect he's right. You could "prove" it for us, but IMO this would be a last resort as you already have a fresh head. First thing I'd try is the cam. Second thing I'd try is a different bigger cam. If you can make that combo work then you'll save all the machining costs. You already have the rockers ground. You could try the cam and if it doesn't work swap in a different cam. I know they say you're not supposed to, but I pulled the cam towers and swapped a cam and had no problems at all. Just pulled the spark plugs and drained the coolant beforehand, and retorqued the head bolts after. Did it on my L twice (on the same headgasket). Also did it on my 22RE, that one was a little sketchy because you have to pull ALL of the head bolts.

Any old fluid will work, just add limited slip additive that's available from your local auto parts store. If you want to spend some extra cash, I use SWEPCO 201. Search on google and you'll find it, it runs about $45/gal last time I checked.

117 is crazy. I hope you have a cool suit setup. I was out once at THill at 114 in jeans and a long sleeve shirt and I swore I'd never do it again. I think I had heat stroke when I got out of the car. Dizzy, felt like puking, and on top of that my exhaust hangers melted and I got the meatball flag, it was not a good time. Out of curiosity, what did you think of the Celicas?

250hp out of an L24 is going to require race gas and 12:1 compression or thereabouts. I believe that is about what the EP road racing cars put out at the flywheel, not the wheels. Turbo is a good suggestion, as is a V8. A VERY mild V8 would put down 250 whp. If you're determined to keep the L24, we can discuss those parts. I don't think the Euro distributor is going to gain you much unless your current distributor is worn out. The Crane setup and the coil should be good for about 10 hp. I'd go NA 280ZX distributor instead of the Euro. Just for comparison's sake, I have an L28 pushing about 240 whp, and it has about 11:1 compression, 44 Mikunis, 280ZX distributor, ported head, cam, 2.5" exhaust, etc etc etc, and a 15% bump in displacement from your L24. It's very high strung and requires 95 octane gas to prevent pinging.

It is supposed to get all the way up to 72 degrees here today. I might have to pack my nuts in dry ice to try to make it through... Sorry guys, had to. I think it was one of you Texan bastards who was telling me about your 75 degrees when it was 28 degrees here last winter...

Perfect guys. Thanks!

Close, but I'm really concerned with the front part in front of the wheel, and you've got it at a bit too much of an angle. Thanks for the effort though.

Suspension compressed doesn't matter so much. If it was up on blocks with the wheel on that would be OK. I pretty much just want to see where the wheel is fore/aft. Thanks.

As the title says, I really need a side shot of a Z with no front fender but sitting on the wheels, not disassembled. Anybody have one? It'd help me out a lot. Thanks,

I've got a couple of those bolts, but it looks like jt is a lot closer. Happy to help you find the problem, I know how frustrating that can be. Isn't that the 2nd LS powered Z to lose one of those bolts in the last 6 months or so? Never heard of that before the last LS guy did it.

Most HPDE's have the same requirements as autox, battery secured, no broken lug studs, just basic safety stuff. Some require a fire extinguisher. They aren't competitions, so they don't require cages and all of that. As far as finding out where and when they are, I don't really know. I haven't been doing any racing at all since I moved here so I'm way out of the loop. You might try http://www.wwscc.org/ and see if you can dig up any info there. They have a forum, you could probably ask and get an answer there if you can't find a calendar on the normal website. Must be a HUGE area they're running in, and the rent must be CHEAP. Where I used to run there was a 5 acre concrete pad that we ran on (perfect surface, great grip). They'd use the whole thing and times were generally around 1 minute. We'd usually see between 120 and 180 drivers and get 4 runs in a day. They'd only make maybe $1000 per event, but the couple that ran it would let smaller local car clubs "guest host" and design the track and also keep the profit.

I don't know. Got probably 5 years or more to sort that out. Maybe TKO? I need to blow up or wear out my L6 which only has 1500 miles on it, and in order to do that I have to get it on the road, which is probably still a year off. It's going to happen, just don't hold your breath. I hope someone beats me to it. I've been hoping to see a really lightweight LS Z for a while now. Closest I think I've seen so far is the red one that has all the chassis bracing. It's Kipperman's car, the one that tube80z is always posting pics of. That one is 2500. That's not bad, but it should be pretty easy to get the thing way under the stock weight the way I figure.

I had the good luck to return a favor recently. When I was in CA I had a couple friends who BUSTED THEIR BUTTS to help me plant a lawn and install a large patio with pavers. It was a big job, almost 2000 sq ft of pavers and these guys went way above and beyond the call of "friend duty". Anyway, I move to Seattle, and 2 years later one of these guys does too. He calls me up one day and says "My car is running weird and there is coolant on the ground, but the temp gauge is at 0 and the heater blows cold." Oh crap, I thought. He ran it out of water and probably warped the heads. I told him add water NOW. See what happens, see if it blows a bunch of white smoke. I also told him that the coolant temp sensor needs water to transmit the temperature and explained all that to him. Anyway, the headgaskets didn't appear to be blown, which was good news. He brought it by and it was pretty obvious the waterpump had failed. He said he was going to take it to a shop, didn't want to impose. I told him that I'd do it if it was expensive. Needless to say the next weekend I was changing the water pump on his S10 Blazer. Easy job, but he had neither the tools nor the mechanical aptitude to do it himself. Did the job in a couple hours and BBQ'd up some dinner for him. Car runs great, saved him $300+, and I've at least partially repaid him for all the work he did at my old house (probably need to do another 15 water pumps to fully repay the guy), but it really feels good to pay back the debt even to some extent.

12 runs? I think the most I've ever gotten was 6 and that was because turnout was about 1/4 that of a normal autox. 12 runs is pretty incredible. Glad to hear we snagged another one. It's great fun and relatively cheap. You might try a track day if there is a track around you too. A typical track day is 3 or 4 20 minute sessions. Hardest part about the big track is flying down the straight away and then deciding where you're going to stop accelerating and start braking. Much bigger pucker factor.

Wouldn't that cause some really bizarre gyroscopic forces on a bike? Shouldn't it be mounted 90 degrees different to counter that problem?

Should be able to do an LSx swap and strip the interior add some fiberglass and end up around 2100 lbs with an early 240 also (one of our members has a 6 cylinder set up for autox at 1900 lbs), with a weight distribution of about 47/53 front to rear. That should be a KICK ASS track car. It will be mine... oh yes, it will be mine!