JMortensen

There have been quite a few threads that have come up in the past few years where there was a very large amount of toe in in the rear. Turns out that some of the struts were just plain manufactured wrong, with the hole for the spindle pin drilled at an angle which causes pretty severe toe in on one side or the other. John Coffey was the first one that I saw actually identify that this was due to the strut being manufactured incorrectly.

I think you missed my point Dan. The point is that the voltage fluctuates because of the FI in the closed loop mode. Strotter had said that the NB only indicates high or low, and that isn't the case, but it is what you would see when you look at the voltage signal for an older FI system in closed loop mode. The closed loop mode is constantly going rich then lean then rich then lean. Once you're out of closed loop it follows a map, and it won't fluctuate. It will change, but it won't go up and down unless the fuel map says to go up and down. That "hunting" is the effect of the closed loop system, not the effect of the O2 sensor itself.

Why not just use them at both ends? They're a lot more stiction free than poly, and I think if you buy them you get all of the adjusters for the rear control arm as a set. The stock specs allow for a pretty healthy amount of toe-in out back, but what you want to look out for is the strut being drilled at the wrong angle. That has come up enough times that it is, IMO, pretty likely that you could have that issue. Need a 4 wheel alignment to check. On the front tie rods, I had that same fear. I just checked the ones on the rack that I'm working on, and the inner tie rods have a full 2" of threads on them. If you follow my 1.5x the diameter in the threaded section rule of thumb, then you should have about 13/16" inside the tie rod. That allows for a decent amount of lengthening the control arm.

You're about to be living my dream Mike, that is exactly the same goal I'm working towards.

Oh, I thought this was for your ZXT. If that was in the middle of the travel I think you might have a beef with ST. Sorry I wasn't following that part at first. It looks to me like if you could straighten that last bend a little bit you'd fix the issue. I was able to bend my 3/4" bar in a 12 ton press pretty easily. I think yours is 7/8", might be doable. Rear toe adjustment on a 280, well, you can get G machine camber bushings, or you can make your own variation of the poor man's toe adjuster: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=89111, or you can get adjustable control arms from MM or AZC.

I don't think that's correct strotter. When you look at the voltage signal of an NB O2 that's being used on a typical FI system at idle it does fluctuate wildly. That's because the a/f ratios of most FI systems fluctuate at idle, cutting fuel and adding fuel constantly trying to hover around stoich. If you put a NB on a carbed car the numbers stay consistant and don't fluctuate at all. When I drove around for a while with the DMM in my car tuning my carbs, my goal was to get the DMM to show .8V all the way through a pull. .8V = 13:1 a/f ratio. The refresh rate of the DMM is the real limitation, so that's why I kept doing it over and over and over in an attempt to get it as steady as possible. IIRC the voltage also stops fluctuating in the FI systems when the system goes out of closed loop. I'm pretty bad with FI but that's what I seem to remember when I was trying to help a friend tune his turbo truck FI.

That really doesn't look that bad to me. You have to be pretty far out of line with a semi-trailing arm suspension because when the arm moves the pivot point will swing back and out. If it moved straight up and down then you could point the end link right at the hole in the arm, but it doesn't. You could pull one of the struts off and attach the bar on that side and swing the semi-trailing arm up and down through it's range of motion and see if it gets better or worse as the suspension moves. I'd bet it looks a lot better when the suspension is at ride height. I know mine did. If I were you I'd slot the rear crossmember for camber and toe. IIRC, and I might not, the ZXT has bushings at both ends of the strut. So if you slot the strut tower and move the top of the strut over you won't actually change the camber, you'll just compress the bushings on the ends of the strut. As camber changes on a semi-trailing arm toe also changes, for this reason you need to be able to adjust both.

The tough part there is the 20 degrees. Unless you have slip plates with angle pointers it's hard to get exact. I tried that method using a protractor to make the angle on the garage floor and showed 7 degrees caster. When I put the car on an alignment rack I had 5.5 degrees.

I second that.

That's what I did. Worked pretty good for tuning in my Mikunis. I have some friends who did the same thing and found they were dead on when they put their cars on the dyno and compared the multi-meter to the WBO2. There is an old post that you can search for that gives voltage values for a/f ratios on the NB. The light displays are fairly useless IMO, but if you drive around for a while with the DMM you can actually do a fair job. I wouldn't use it on a high strung turbo car where things are critical, but worked great for me. Oh, and moby, I have an ACT, an R200, and someday will have an LSx as well...

I agree with Pop, profiling in most cases is really just good police work. The ones I worry about are the cops who can't tell the difference between an EVO and a Ford Taurus. How dumb does a cop have to be to not recognize the difference, and do we really want people like that patrolling the streets? If your friend wasn't breaking the law and got pulled over, that's one thing, but you certainly made it sound like he was guilty of not having a front license plate and the exhaust is suspect at best from the cops point of view. If I were your friend I would fight the exhaust ticket too, especially if the cop didn't have a decibel meter. Then I'd tell the next cop who pulled me over how I fought the last ticket and won if that was the outcome. That's his prerogative though, and if he doesn't want to stand up for himself, too bad. BTW, the guys that I know that ride Harleys all complain about getting harrassed for loud exhaust. They even have a rote argument: "My exhaust is loud so that when I'm on the freeway people can hear me in their blind spot even if they can't see me." The first time I heard that was when a co-worker of mine got pulled over riding to work. Sure, that's why whenever they see your window is rolled down they suddenly feel a need to gun it and blow out your eardrums as they pass. No sympathy for Harley riders or riced out EVOs with fart pipes from me. I just hope that I don't get lumped into that ricer crowd on the few occasions when I do take my Z out on the street in the future. I won't have a fart pipe or a triple element wing on the back, so I imagine I'll be all right.

Not good. You know we're all pulling for you Pete. Good luck and get well soon.

The ride height isn't determined by the free length of the spring. It's determined by it's rate, and the weight of the vehicle. You could have a 80 lb spring and a 700 lb spring that are the same length, but the ride height will be totally different with the two different rates. I suggest you put them on then cut them to the height you want after you see where they're at. They're also progressive, so if you cut the tighter wound coils that would be cutting the soft end of the spring if you care. Spring rate doesn't change that much by cutting coils unless you cut a lot of coils. Dan Baldwin figured that one out on a thread a while back, maybe 2 years ago or so. I can't remember the example exactly, but someone was worried about how stiff they would get and it added like 5 lbs to the spring rate to cut the coil or two that they were talking about.

Pulled out a spare steering rack and cleaned it up, actually has good bushings in it and feels nice and tight so I think I'm going to use it. Only issue is that the hole for the zerk is stripped. It didn't have a Zerk in it when I pulled it out of my parts stash so I put a Zerk fitting in there and greased the rack. When I pulled the grease gun off, the Zerk came with it. I've got some larger Zerks that I could use but I'd have to drill the hole larger, which I imagine would mean pulling the rack apart. Also considered cleaning the hole really good and JB Welding the Zerk in there. It only has to withstand the grease gun abuse, so that might be good enough. I've been thinking of different ways to mount the rack further back on the crossmember, and I was looking at the clamped on snubber thingy that is on the rack to prevent it from rotating. This clamp is a U bolt type, and both of the racks that I own have them. So I'm thinking it would be pretty easy to make a plate, drill holes in it, and weld it to the crossmember and then use the U bolts to attach the rack to the plate. Might be that the bottom half of the clamp could just be welded straight to the flat center section of the crossmember. If I ground the stock mounts off, and clearanced the rack, I think this would work and allow the rack to be moved back about 7/8" to 1". The question is would the U bolts be strong enough to prevent the rack from moving laterally? I'm thinking they would, I know that U-bolts are stronger than straps for securing U-joints. Anyone have a yea or a nay on this idea, suggestions, or a better idea for me?

Wow that sounds like a real PITA.

Yep, and all the profits go to education and charities. Nothing wrong with people like him willing to put their name on a bottle of salsa in order to help others. Sell quality stuff and use the profits to help people... what a concept. Man it's hard not to get political with this one. Needless to say, I like it.

So what is the problem? That's what I did' date=' and I sectioned the fronts 1 5/8" and the rears 2". Worked great. If the sleeves are the wrong size that would be a problem. The camber plate should be the same for the 240 or 280 though. You should really start your own thread, but so far all I'm hearing is you got the wrong threaded tubes. Everything else sounds right to me.

This was probably an attempted fix for a badly wallowed out hole for the clevis pin. You could either go back to the stock clevis, or shorten the push rod and make the clevis part of the clutch pedal and the rod end part of the push rod. Then the rod end can be used in line with the clutch pedal. I like the idea of the rod end because the stock clevis pin and the pedal both tend to wear out, it was just poor implementation by the PO. Sounds like an easy fix though, and then it will be better than new.

Check the FAQ's for info on sectioning struts, or just search. It's been discussed many times.

I don't understand wearing pink assless chaps and then not going full bore for the G string. It would be nice if she had a little more *** too, for that matter. Despite these issues, I applaud her for showing her *** both in public and to the internet at large and I hope that she will inspire more women to have the self-confidence to ride in assless chaps in the future. To answer your question Alex, I don't think that's a squid. Its a clam.

Search for "timesert"

Suggestion--get out of the residential zone so you can open it up a bit. Might want to work on that understeer problem too...

[broken record]If you build up a 2.8 and build up a 3.1 equally, the difference in power is going to be ~10%, which is the difference in displacement. So you have to figure out how much it will cost to add that 10% in power and then figure out if it is worth it to you. If you are running a really built street L engine with triple sidedrafts you might see something like 280 hp for the 3.1 and 250 for the 2.8. This is assuming similar headwork, cam, etc. So the question is: How much more do you have to pay for the bottom end work and parts to get the extra 30 hp, and is that worth it to you?[/broken record] I think auxilary is talking about building a stroker, but that would use the maxima diesel crank, not cam. From your choices, I'd choose the built L series. Sounds like it should make quite a bit more power than the V8. I knew those 215s were weak, but under 200 hp to the wheels is pretty pathetic. I wouldn't bother stroking your motor if it costs more than $1000 for that part of the build. You will spend quite a bit on the headwork and IMO you'll get more hp out of that then you will the stroker. It will eventually all boil down to how much money you have to spend.

John, two most common posts for reaction disk are as follows: 1. I've bled my system 437 times and the pedal still hits the floor. Pedal feels great when the engine is off. 2. Pedal has no feeling and goes straight to the floor then all the brakes lock and car screeches to a stop. EDIT--I should also say that I've never actually had this problem myself, but I've seen it so many times that I'm just used to seeing the complaints at this point.

That also sounds like a reaction disk problem DCZ. Search for reaction disk and you'll find a very recent post where a guy took pictures of it. Basically you should be able to unbolt the master and pull it off the studs with everything else still attached, then pull the booster rod and look for it. If you don't see it you can try to fish around in the bottom of the booster, or you can just take the booster off and shake it until the disk comes out. Either way, reposition the disk and reassemble.