JMortensen

What changed is that the early cars didn't have the storage compartments, they had tool covers on the uprights behind the seats. They had a top section with a bunch of flanged holes in it (imagine that), and the vertical face had the rectangular sections cut out. I think the triangular box structure created by the deck and the vertical face is extremely important to the stiffness of the unibody. But, if you're doing a full cage then maybe the stiffness of the unibody isn't so important anymore. My goal in my own project is to strengthen the unibody and the subframes, and to add the stiffness of the roll cage so I stitch welded all this stuff on my car (see pic below). What I don't get is where all the extra weight comes from on the mid 71 and later 240Z cars. I know the console changed and they added the storage compartments, but as you can see in the weights thread my car weighed about the same as John's, when mine had a bunch of extra insulation, full carpet kit, R200, Recaros, L28, 5 speed and an Autopower roll bar and it sounded like his was already mostly stripped down. Weight matters a lot, but I do have to wonder just how much weight you're cutting by taking holes out of the sheetmetal. I guess if you've done everything else and there's nothing more to do and the cage structure is sufficient then it's not going to hurt. I guess like you said you could weigh all the metal you've cut and see what a difference you've made if you really wanted to quantify it.

I do not believe this is correct. I had to swap out my steer knuckles because the tapered hole for the tie rod is smaller diameter in the 70 than the later knuckles, so replacement tie rods don't fit. I specifically remember the knuckles that I got from a 2+2 were SHORTER than the knuckles that were on the car, so I thought at the time that 2+2's had the quick steer knuckles because they have a longer wheelbase. Turns out I was wrong about that, the 2+2 has the same knuckles as a normal Z, so then I thought maybe for some weird reason the owner of the 2+2 had put the short knuckles on. Just a couple weeks ago I got a hold of some "normal" Z knuckles, and they were the same length as the ones that were on the car. So the original 70 Z knuckles were longer than the rest of them, if I'm correct. My car is a 5/70, #4396, and I think I was the first one to ever replace the tie rod ends FWIW. Also, I believe that ALL of the European Z's came with the shorter knuckles. Like many of the things in the comp catalog (springs, crank damper, tail lights, 5 speed) the European Z's got them as standard issue.

Matman has a bunch o' headlight buckets, fiberglass and steel. PM him or email to racermatATearthlink.net

Most people put oil in the strut housing to conduct heat from the insert to the housing. It also keeps the strut from rusting in the tube. That's probably what it was. If you want to replace it just use a couple ounces of motor oil or ATF.

E85 is mostly alcohol from grains. It has a higher octane rating than gas and just like an alcohol drag racer you can run more boost when you're using it without detonating. You could probably run 12:1 compression too on a NA car. http://www.agriculture.state.ia.us/e85q&a.html

I was watching the M test drive on Speed this morning. I know they're really just an hour long infomercial but that coupe was pretty sweet looking. Looks like what the 350Z should be. They even talked about the long hood and how you sit right in front of the rear tires. Sounded familiar to me. Other than that I'd say go huge and go Viper. Regardless, I think your track car will be faster than whatever you buy.

I think the 510 knuckles are longer, but that's ~8 year old memory talking. The 510 is also a rear steer, but I think you could put them on backward to fix that. If somebody has a set to measure I have some Z knuckles ready to compare with. Also for Ackerman's sake the 510 knuckle would be bent the wrong way compared to a front steer setup (can't remember if it's bent or not from the factory), and you can't switch side to side because the twist on the end of the steer knuckle would be wrong which would make the tie rod bottom.

I know the spline count is different. Finding the Shiro is going to be damn near impossible I think. Might want to consider trying the 240SX VLSD and seeing if that has the same spline count. If that works, maybe see if that outer matches up to the MM adapters for the companion flange. If not would the Z31T 4 bolt outers fit on the outboard end of the CV shaft? I also think you'd have to narrow the axles, but you should be able to find someone to either make you a new set of custom axles or narrow the existing ones and cut the splines if the OD is big enough. One last thought is that you're going to a hell of a lot of trouble to use the VLSD. Might consider a different type of LSD, if you don't like the Nissan one maybe a KAAZ or Cusco.

Yes and yes. You can tack the bar together, lean it forward and weld it right there, or you can pull the doors off and take it completely out and weld it outside of the car. At least the main hoop and the rear facing supports can be welded this way. I have the HF tubing notcher. My only complaint was that when I first got it the hole saw didn't go directly through the middle of the tube. I had to shim it out with a super thin washer. Other than that, works great. This thread may help too: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=102715

I was trying to say that if you watched the voltage on a NB O2 sensor with a DMM when it was in open loop the voltage wouldn't be up and down and up and down, because it does that as a function of how the closed loop system works.

There are a bunch of threads on the S&W roll bars/cages. Search and you'll find lots of info. I really like what Austin (240hoke) did on his S&W. He didn't follow the directions, but he came up with something a lot better.

510 strut tops are much different and require a larger plate. Good news is you can adjust farther too because there's more room.

Dan was running pump 93 octane. That's a big difference from a guy in CA running oxygenated 91. That's my theory on why he didn't have detonation.

Alrighty then. Done with the crossmember, unless I need to grind some of the welds around the slots flat. I did bolt the crossmember in and weld in the pipe. Just some oddball 2.5" pipe I had laying around, worked pretty good though. Then I made the stop for the rack. For this I just used 1" wide piece of angle iron. It fits right in where the bushings go on the rack. Also you'll see that the clearance between the pinion housing and the pipe is pretty close, basically I don't think the rack is going anywhere. I then slotted the holes on this crossmember and made some 1/8" plates to go over the slots. This was something I had intended to do on the last crossmember and never got around to. I was just running a washer on both sides of the slot on the last one, not really good enough, but luckily for me it never caused a problem.First pic is an overhead shot so you can see how the rack moved. I think I'm going to call it good and not mess with bending the steer knuckles for any further Ackerman. Too much hassle and I don't have an oxy/acetylene torch.

I never understood how anyone could claim to know what lash pad you need. The depth of the valve can change, eg after a valve job, or if the seats are sinking into the head. I had to change the lash pads when I installed new valves. Can't remember how much, but I definitely had to go bigger because the valve was sitting futher into the chamber. Needless to say do the wipe pattern and make sure, regardless of what Delta or whoever suggests.

For the guys with the 300ZXT LSD that uses spacers instead of clutches I suggest you do 4-1.65mm clutch disks. That directly replaces the thickness of the spacers and gives you 3 times as much surface area to put torque to the side gears. You can still shim to a desired breakaway from there. I know there were guys who were having trouble with the 300 ZXT LSDs when drag racing, and I bet that the crappy 1 disk per side clutch setup that the 300ZXT LSD has is the culprit. I think you drag guys with the BIG hp should jump on this. It is a good deal. Thanks again Joshua, I really appreciate you doing this.

On a road course you're trying to put the power down to the inside rear tire while you've got lots of weight transfer to the outside tires. So you're much more likely to get the one wheel peel while cornering than a drag racer with sticky tires going straight. There might be a point at which you're putting down SO much power that you really need a lot of lockup in the drag car, but I don't have much experience with that.

Mike that sounds like a bad idea. Really bad idea. Only thing that comes to mind that would make that OK is a roll cage with attachments to the strut tower through the firewall. I don't know that even something like the PDK stut tower brace would be strong enough to hold that tower in place with that big a chunk missing. I'll be interested to see what others have to say though.

That's a pretty good price, but how much does "motor freight" shipping cost? Pull out your yellow pages and call around to glass shops. They usually have this stuff on the shelf. Even if it's more expensive, I'm guessing might be cheaper than shipping the one piece freight.

I think the GM hubs generally have 5 on 5 patterns, where a lot of guys are looking for 5 on 4.5. I think 240hoke is using insanely light Vette hubs or Camaro hubs with PBR brakes. He'd be able to help with the GM issue.

It's Nissan, and it's probably Skyline. Arizona Z Car used to sell them for years, I think stony had something to do with that deal. You might try PM'ing him to see if he can fill in the gaps for you.

The one that I probably posted was http://www.onlinemetals.com They're kind of pricey, but they are 10 minutes from my house and that's the primary reason I use them a lot.

If it doesn't slip when you're on the power, then it has enough BT. The thread that I had about shimming had a bunch of racers saying 45 lbs was enough, and that I was overdoing it by going with 100. If you're drag racing probably minimal BT would be necessary, because the more torque you put to it the harder it locks up, regardless of the BT. Out of curiousity, what are the different angles on the ramps? EDIT-Nevermind, I saw your pics in your gallery. They are quite a bit more aggressive than the ramps in my diff. Remember John that Gordon Glasgow had a "Nismo" H-190 LSD that was purchased last year and it was internally identical to mine with the one clutch disk and big spacers, so buying Nismo branded LSDs at twice the price doesn't necessarily guarantee you anything AFAIK. If you're just wanting the best, the KAAZ stuff is way better than anything Nissan sells.

There's more than one way to skin a cat: http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com

Got the brackets welded on. What I did to ensure straightness was to pull the boots off and pull the rack all the way to the left. I measured the distance from the crossmember to the inner tie rod. I also measured from the bottom of the inner tie rod to the table. Then pulled it all the way to the right and measured the same dimensions. Right off the bat it was pretty close, with about 1/16" difference in the tie rod to crossmember, and about 1/16" difference on the tie rod to table. So I welded the brackets on, then used a scotch brite pad inside the bracket to fix the difference. It took a while, but I now have the inner to crossmember dead on at 1 3/16", and the table to inner is off maybe 1/32" higher on the passenger side at 1 19/32" vs 1 9/16" on the driver's side. I also measured these dimensions on the stock rack and the passenger side tie rod was 1/8" lower than the driver's, and the other dimension was off 1/16". I guess that's probably just a bit of settling in the rack bushings. So mine is more accurate than the stock rack dimensions, and obviously won't have any bushing flex. I also gave clearance for the rack boots. That was pretty easy to do with a grinder and a sanding disk. Now all I need to do is fill in that hole in the crossmember with some pipe. I will also have to open up the centermost holes in the bottom of the crossmember to access the nuts inside, and drill out the holes for the U-bolts. Then I can measure it all up again and make sure its still all correct. I'm a little concerned about welding the pipe in, think I might bolt the crossmember into the frame before I do that just to prevent any warping.