JMortensen

Uh... yeah. That's a bit more bitchin than I was thinking. I was thinking of strengthening the existing setup, not completely replacing it. Looks like they were on the same wavelength though, huh???

The 300ZXT has 2 spring disks, 3 friction disks, and only one clutch disk. They then fill up the stack with a 3.25mm washer. The thing that makes the most sense from a strength and lockup perspective is to have disc/plate/disc/plate/disc/plate, with the two springs on the outside of each stack. So making friction plates makes sense if yours are worn out, but for people just trying to beef up the 300ZXT the sensible thing to do is to add two more disks and leave not add any more plates.

Ever seen the TV show Bullsh!t? They had a special on recycling and the "landfill crisis" of the 80's. Turns out the landfill crisis is a bunch of hooey. I don't mind making biofuel from trash and I think its a great idea especially if the fuel produced can run the machines to produce it, but I think we consume a hell of a lot more oil than we can produce from trash, and all of the other recycling is more of an expensive feel good exercise than a service to the environment or the economy, with the exception of aluminum which is cheaper to recycle than to mine and process. By the way I was watching "Dirty Jobs" and they were making compost out of food waste that was used in the vineyards of Napa valley. I guess if this biofuel thing goes as planned then they'll need a new source of compost...

Gotta disagree that bracing forward of the strut is useless. The engine compartment is 4 frame rails, uppers and lowers. In the back it connects around the A pillar, and down to the lowers, and uses the cowl torque box on top. In the front it has the rad core support to keep all 4 frame members in line. IMO the core support is a weak spot, as evidenced by repeatedly tearing up radiators in my own car. If the front frame rails are bending enough to cause the tanks on a brass radiator to leak, then that bending would also probably be causing changes in the camber, allowing the frame rails to flex into a parallelogram shape under cornering loads. Also the front swaybar tends to rip apart the frame rail, certainly you could see the benefit of reinforcing this area, even though it is forward of the strut tower. Solid mounting the drivetrain is a good idea for a race car and does transfer chassis loads through the engine and transmission structures. Unfortunately the transmission mount isn't in a particularly good location to put the loads into the chassis, being part of the non-reinforced sheet metal tranny tunnel. The engine (at least stock) is on the tall pedestals of the front crossmember and that also seems like a suspect structure to put really major loads through. I'm sure it would help, but it would be a lot better with a trans crossmember that attached to the subframe and a front crossmember that was a little more stout. That's my untested estimation anyway.

Crinkle paint.

I'm probably biased because I'm selling a HF gift card worth $160 on ebay right now, but I have had better luck with HF stuff. some of the HF tools I own: drill press 4 engine stands (including the 3 I used to make my rotisserie) 3 4.5" grinders probably 10 various air die grinders, angles - never seen one of these go bad sheet metal shears parts washer metal cutting band saw -- this one has proven itself invaluable cut off saw cherry picker and load leveler 12 ton press big ol tool box - suprisingly not bad ratcheting wrenches all sorts of sockets and miscellaneous stuff hammers prybars chisels auto body hammers punches welding helmet welding gloves regular mechanix gloves tubing notcher cobalt drill bits electric drill air drill + a lot more I can't recall off of the top of my head. There were some things that were complete crap. Their rotary tool SUCKS. I attempted to use it for about 30 seconds before throwing it in the trash and driving to Lowes to get a real Dremel. The press arbor bent on me when I was trying to push out a spindle pin, but I probably needed a 50 ton press for that. The drill press had the handle attached to the spindle by means of a roll pin. When I tried to press the chuck on I sheared off the roll pin so I just welded the handle on. The tubing notcher needed a little shimming to cut right in the center of the tubes. It was off by 1/32" or so. I tried some of their cheaper HSS drill bits and they were horrible, but the cobalt bits are REALLY GOOD. I had owned some Matco cobalt bits before that were excellent, but I was skeptical of the HF stuff after the crappy HSS experience. Their cobalt bits exceeded all of my expectations. Other than that the tools have done fine by me. If I were wrenching for a living I'd probably have more Matco and Snap-On stuff, but I wouldn't have been able to afford 1/5th of the tools that I have from the Snap-On dealer so it's a trade off.

It's been discussed before. It works, there is stuff that is for sound dampening, and there is other "structural foam" that is for stiffening. The problem is that once it's in there repairing rust or that sort of thing is pretty much impossible. I think Cary had that done to a car and ended up scrapping it when it rusted out. I had found some online that was supposedly waterproof, so yeah if you rustproofed the hell out of it and then put that in should do OK.

I went out and took a few pics. Hopefully this will explain the X idea. The first one shows where the X would go, the second shows where the plates would attach, the third shows where the plates would go if it was behind the radiator. Looking at the upper frame rails, they get really low profile and wide right on the fore side of the core support. Makes me think that this isn't the best place to attach them. Putting them aft of the core support makes more sense, but then theres some pretty serious clearance issues with the engine that would have to be measured out carefully, and I'd have to make my puller fan a pusher. Kinda rethinking the whole thing, or thinking that I should do it in front to the inside of the raised area where the vent elbows attach, but this means that the upper part of the X doesn't actually attach to a frame rail, so that wouldn't necessarily defeat the purpose, but probably wouldn't be as strong.

Looks a bit beefy for what I need. Its the right idea though!

Didn't Mike say that the place that did his roll cage was buying this stuff in pre made sheets? I guess I'll PM him about that. That's a good price on the flare tool for sure Steve, but I'd like to make this easy on myself if it is available in pre-made sheets. You'd think they could stamp these things out for next to nothing...

Just went out and put my seat in the car, and with my seat and bracket, etc there IS room for the 3x1 tubing on the rocker if one were so inclined. Still not sure on doing that though. I think I might go the other way and do the round tube.

All right Donna!!! Always nice to see ladies at the track, and here at Hybrid Z too.

Wow that's convenient. Joe's is about 20 minutes drive from here. Thanks. Anyone know where to get the flanged sheet that people use to tie the cage to the A pillar like Mike Kelly's car has?

Sheet metal shears are handy, as is a jigsaw with metal blade. I wish I had a belt sander/disc combo.

These taco gussets, what thickness metal is used? I've seen a lot of pictures that look like sheet metal. Also see a lot with a flanged hole. Is that hole necessary, or just better? Is it that much better to have the sheet wrap around as opposed to doing one separate gusset on each side? The BMX comment brought back some old memories Cary. Made me realize that my Supergoose had a flanged hole and two separate gussets.

That's not a bad idea at all. But instead of renting the track, you could just go to an Open Track event at Buttonwillow. All you need is a safe car and a helmet and $150. 20 minute session should be able to get good data, and there's tons of run off room. It's still controlled in the beggining groups, no passing until you give a point by and that sort of thing. Streets of Willow is another good choice for you. See if the Porsche Owners Club is having a short track series event out there. Speeds are lower and it is tighter, more like a really huge autox. Tons of fun either way. http://www.nasaproracing.com/hpde/index.html http://socal.drivenasa.com/index.php?categoryid=3#oct8 http://www.porscheownersclub.org/ Looks like they have an event at SoW on September 9th.

Swaybar mount looks plenty strong. Rail modification with the angle is interesting. Not sure I'm on board with the gussets at the bottom of the strut tower though. I think it needs bracing up top. My impression is that the weak area there is the upper frame rail. Yeah the strut tower is attached to the lower frame rail (or almost anyway), but I think the part that's really flexing is the top rail. I'd assume you'll have some sort of strut tower bracing up there too, just not sure how much the gussets will help out. The thing rolling around in the back of my brain right now that kind of ties into this is how to get an X in there to tie the upper and lower frame rails together. Looks hard to do in the core support where I had originally envisioned it. Might have to cut a bunch of the support out, do the X, then rebuild it back up. Or maybe just do something else entirely. There might be just enough space between the radiator and the engine.

Tell that to Mike Kelly. zero- there have been a couple threads about fighting tickets in the past couple months. Doesn't sound like the cop radared you or anything, and it seems pretty clear that the fact that he thought he saw you earlier had something to do with why you were pulled over. I'd fight it. I'd also search and read up on the "Mike Kelly Manual for Avoiding Prosecution".

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinks From http://www.speedtv.com/pinks/pinks101.php

I think I once read that Pinks has a $100 buy back provision. So it's "Lose the race. Lose your ride. Or pay $100."

Sprung and puck clutch don't seem to go together. If you have a clutch that is purpose built to grab that aggressively like the 6 puck, it seems like it would just break or shuck the springs leaving you with a broken hub. Seen enough broken or loose springs on regular clutches that I really wouldn't trust a sprung puck clutch.

There was another thread that said that the outer pinion bearing isn't available anymore. I bought one last year though, so ??? Light surface rust on gears isn't a problem. Anything more than that is. I'd take Mark up on his offer, and if not him directly a 3.54 R200 should be super easy to find.

I dunno. Funniest thing about that to me is the guys saying he's going to die in a fiery wreck when they break. I love the one guy who thinks the front of the car is going to come off the ground. What spring rate does he think they're running? 5000 in/lbs?!? They're only compressed an inch, right? Dumb way to lower a car? Yes. Will it hurt the handling? Yes. Is the amount of energy stored in the spring enough to cause damage to the suspension if the clamp should let go? No. Is there a slim possibility that the clamp could hit the tire or the brake line and cause damage as it breaks. Yes. SLIM chance. That dude should just cut a coil or two off the damn stock springs.

Retarding timing increases top end power. Advanced cam timing maybe.