JMortensen

I don't think you're going to find a fixed caliper that works as an ebrake. If you look at the ebrake calipers, the lever you pull with the cable pushes on ONE piston. If you have a 2 piston or 4 piston fixed caliper, you won't be able to push both or all of the pistons, because you only have one cable per side. You NEED a sliding caliper with an ebrake that fits a vented rotor. You might check older Subarus. They had the ebrake on the front calipers and I think they had vented rotors up there too. I had some a LONG time ago and there were some clearance issues with the strut, but I was trying to put the caliper on a small rotor. If you upped the size of the rotor it might work.

I gotta say I like the muzzle brakes, and that would be a selling point for me on that Savage. I went to the range one time with my Model 70 .243 and there was a guy a couple spots down with a 7mm Mag. He asked if we could trade guns for a couple rounds, because when he got his brake they told him his gun would kick like a .243. It actually had LESS recoil, and was nicer to shoot than my Model 70. I dunno, maybe I'm just a wimp but even when I was really into shooting and was going every weekend or two for a couple years I ALWAYS got a bruise on my shoulder and usually was just shooting about 20 rounds thru my .243 and maybe 100 rounds out of the 20 gauge shotgun. The point is even on the "smaller" rounds, brakes are a good thing!

I've got a few comments/suggestions: Is your distribution really 50/50, or are you just guessing? My Z with the L28 and a R200 and a roll bar but otherwise basically stock was 49.5/50.5. If you just said I have a 280Z with a VG30T I'd guess that it was going to be 47/53 or something like that. If you have really big fronts compared to the rears the adjustable proportioning valve might not be enough to fix it. I had Toy fronts and 280ZX rear disk and I couldn't get enough rear bias. Even took the prop valve out completely. Still not enough. Other ways of fixing the bias: different pads front and rear, dual master cylinder setups, different wheel cylinder sizes, suitable rear disk brake upgrade. If you want to keep the drums I'd see about changing the wheel cylinders out for something bigger then use the prop valve to dial the back end in. You have gigantic tires in the back as well, so you can probably push a little more bias to the back just as a general rule. If you drive this car on the street the safest thing to do is do the lockup test in the wet and set it there. Don't want it set for perfect dry conditions then find out that it wants to loop around as soon as there is water on the road.

Why did you spend all that $$$ then dial in such a mild setup? Especially on caster which isn't a tire wearing angle and helps camber when you turn the wheels, it would have been a good idea to crank it up. The camber should close to double what you set it to for an aggressive street alignment IMO.

In this particular case Paul, the guy suggests shaving the P90 .080 and swapping in the N42 or N47 valves. The lash pads don't need to be adjusted if you do this, and the shims restore the original seat pressure, because the new valves are .080 longer than the P valves, since the P heads have the deeper combustion chambers they have shorter stems. But if you go with a cam over .460 lift, then you have to change the valve springs and the lash pads anyway. The benefit is that you get a more efficient combustion chamber design with a reasonable compression ratio for a hot engine that can still run pump gas.

So you're talking rear calipers then. It's a floating caliper, so you'd need longer pins. I also don't think the main clamp part of the caliper that goes across the top would be long enough. It's sized so that the caliper has just enough room to fit the rotor and the pads in there. To answer your question though, Wilwood makes some calipers that are the same for the .38, .81, and 1.25" rotor widths. The only difference is a 1/2" spacer is added for the .81, and two are added for the 1.25" rotors. This only works on a fixed caliper, and won't work on a sliding single piston like the 280ZX has.

If you were to just shim the springs .080 that would get exactly the same amount of preload on them. But in this case it's not likely that Jessie can do that because he's installing a new cam, which most likely will require new springs.

My dad has a couple of Ruger 77s. They're about 20 years old, and I think they might have changed the design of the bolt somewhere along the way, but they're great guns. He has a regular old 77 in .270 and a varmint barreled .308. He won an offhand 500 yard silhouette competition at a fairly large gun club with the .308 when I was about 10 years old. Beat my uncle who was the president of Freedom Arms at the time. Needless to say it is damn accurate. Other than that I always liked the 700 Remington too.

That was the 3rd 20 minute session I think. The pads weren't new, but they probably only had 5000 miles and maybe an autox or two on them. I'd say they had at least 85 or 90% on them when I left the house. I am running slicks which should enable me to put A LOT more heat into the brakes, but I was also trying to conserve the brakes, so how this relates to street or DOT tires is anyone's guess.

Yep, 2.5 ID springs. Again, I think this happened because I ran them so low when I raced. If the spring doesn't ovelap the threaded sleeve that much, I don't think this is really a problem.

Holy crap does that look like fun!!! Is that a "swaybar" in the back? Looking forward to some post-race reports...

This is exactly correct, and I can prove it. I wanted to see you come up with the same answer that I did before I showed proof. With my old setup I used to race with the adjusters all the way down, so the spring overlapped the threaded adjuster by 4". When the bending of the spring happened, it wore the threads on the sleeves. When I reassembled this time I flipped the adjusters over, and you can clearly see the wear. I'm thinking about just leaving it this way, because I don't think it's going to be a good idea to run the car all the way down on the new suspension, as it would just be too dang low. This is by far the worst one FWIW and this is after 8 seasons of autox with the front spring perch located all the way down at the base of the sleeve. The rears barely got touched, as you can see EDIT-just to clarify, I swapped front and rear sleeves because I tended to run the front lower and I figured if I did need to get it down there I'd have better threads:

Crap Pete! That's not good at all! My father-in-law just had a similar thing about 6 months ago. Originally he laid on the floor for a couple of weeks hoping it would get better, finally had to call an ambulance because he couldn't get himself to the hospital. Turns out he had two herniated disks right on top of each other, and I think to fix it they had "section" the disks and then I think they fused 3 of his vertebrae. The discectomy you describe sounds just like what they did on him. Left him with a very thin disk between the vertebrae so that the bones don't rub on each other. He's back working now although not supposed to lift more than 20 lbs. Ever.

Sounds like the R4S pad. DEFINITELY not suitable for track days. Good street pad, but I delaminated the pad during a track day with stock calipers: As you can see, there isn't even any more pad in the little holes anymore. It was GONE. Was momentarily terrifying until I realized that the dirt off the side of the track wasn't very bumpy as I went into it at probably 95 mph.

I don't know about his, but I just checked mine since they're sitting right next to my desk and the GC top hat has probably .120 clearance between the shaft -- I'm guessing .060 per side.

Awfully low compression for triples. It would work, but not as well as higher compression with a bigger cam. I've done triples with 8.5:1 compression. Good at top end, but boggy at low rpms. This is by far the easiest, obviously. L26 isn't terribly awe inspiring though.

The rod/stroke ratio has nothing to do with the pin height. It has to do with the rod length divided by the stroke. Since you're using L28 crank and L24 rods, 133/79 = r/s ratio. You'd be looking at a r/s ratio of 1.683544303xxxxx As to the pin height, that I'm not sure of. You could back track it if you knew how far the pistons came up over the deck. Other than that they could be flush and could pop up a bit, just depends on how Dave orders them.

Ran a tape measure down the swaybar real quick. Just cutting the stock ends off removes 2" front and back. So I guess I'll get 2" stiffer and 1" softer, and can always cut more off if necessary like mentioned before.

As far as attaching to the strut, I have about 6" from the coilover seat to the bottom of the strut tube. I figure the stock sway bar end links are ~4" long, so that means that I might have 2.5 or 3 inches from the sway bar in it's normal location to the seat for the coilover. I guess the rod end mount will lower that a bit more, but I still think its going to be a tight squeeze in there. Maybe I'll mock it up a bit better when I get the front swaybar mounting rod ends installed, I already have the sleeves cut and tapped, just need to bend up the plate for the frame rail reinforcement. Not finding any 3/8 to 1/4" rod end reducers online Not sure I'd trust a 1/4" bolt in there anyway. I guess the next thing to figure out is how much to cut off the end of the bar. If I went 6" on the sleeve, maybe cut 1.5" off the end of the bar, so I could go 1.5" stiffer and 1.5" softer than the stock bar. Then there is the other part of me that says "You know you're just going to cut it again later to make it stiffer". Maybe I'll just start with the 1.5. No biggee to take the bar off and hack the end of later if needed. Thanks for all the help on this Cary. I think this is going to end up with me taking almost ALL of your suggestions. I can say this, the rod end mount for the bar is a FRIGGIN HUUUUUUGE improvement over the poly bushings. Hopefully the rest of these mods will be equally as impressive. I'm starting to actually get anxious to drive the thing. Probably still another year off still, but it is going to be a WHOLE DIFFERENT ANIMAL, that's for sure!

The problem in the front is the tie rod is right in the damn way. I gotta figure out what to do with my crossmember/rack/steer knuckles/tie rods, but until then I think I'm just going to go to the control arm I can always attach to the strut housing later. It wouldn't be hard to do, there just isn't that much room. It would probably be a lot easier if I had 8" springs instead of 10" springs. Aaaah I see!!! Now that makes sense. I was thinking I'd have to weld a tube to the end of the bar with the same OD as the bar, then slide a sleeve over that. I was thinking that the connection where the tube was welded to the end of the bar would take A LOT of stress. Your way seems a lot easier, just make the sleeve overlap the end of the bar by a good amount and you're set. I'll definitely consider that as an option. Do you by chance recall how much overlap you had on the bar? I'm thinking the sleeve should be maybe 8" long and only adjust so that 4" hangs off. Double shear was what I was considering doing. Spacers are kind of a bummer, but I think they're going to be necessary because as the suspension goes through the travel the rod end angle changes, and a 3/8" rod end doesn't allow for too much articulation. With the double shear mounts top and bottom I'm thinking that is going to be a PITA when I do have to change the locations though, since the bolt has to come all the way out to switch to the next hole. A slot might fix that situation but that's probably a bit beyond my fab skills at the moment since it would probably require milling some sort of recessed area. Maybe a little tiny smear of JB weld on the end of the spacer to hold it to the rod end or something like that might work.

I just used a seal puller. You could probably also use a screwdriver. http://www.autobarn.net/lis56750.html

It's a support that was mentioned by preith and is used on his GT2 car. I'm still thinking there might be a K-member type mod to the crossmember, in which case the K member to the TC rod bucket goes straight through this same plane. Whether or not that brace alone will do any good I can't really say. It does look counterintuitive, but it was easy to do and the thin wall tubing weighs next to nothing, so I did it anyway.

WHA??? The adjustable cams on the control arm bushings control camber and toe. Never seen a coilover that adjusts camber. REALLY never seen anything that you have to loosen the nut on the strut to adjust for anything at all (and that sounds like a really bad idea). Camber plates adjust at the top, usually 2 or 4 small screws which you loosen then you can slide the top of the strut in or out to increase or lessen the neg camber.

It's the same as the 240SX pressure plate.