JMortensen

Sectioning the struts will give you 1.5" and going with 240 insulators would give you another inch. At that point you'd still have less than 1/2 the travel. Cut the bumpstop down, another 3/4 to 1". Going with camber plates instead of 240 insulators is going to give you 1.5 inches. That will mean that at the same height you're currently at you'll have most of your travel back. You can do any combination of these things, the sectioning of the struts will require new front inserts, and obviously you'd have to buy camber plates or 240 insulators.

The difference is in the rod/stroke ratio. I wouldn't go WAY out of my way to do this, but if you can find the rods for $100 or less I'd say it's worth it. Search rod/stroke ratio here or on the web in general and you'll find all kinds of info on the differences and benefits you get from different ratios. L24 rods makes no difference to displacement at all. N42 block will take the same pistons as the F54.

Pretty common to run the L28 crank and L24 rods too, which is what the AZC pistons are set up for.

L24 rods are better if you can get the 9mm rods. Gives a better rod/stroke ratio. Worth doing if you can find the rods. I might have a couple leads for you locally if you're interested PM me.

Ring and pinions need to be broken in. LSDs and bearings don't. According to this: http://www.ringpinion.com/content/technicalhelp/default.asp?pid=109 your pinion bearing preload might be a little loose. I haven't found R180s or R200s to be the quietest diffs around, so you may consider just living with it if it isn't really obnoxious.

Good luck! Hope that works out for you guys. I'd love to hear some feedback after you've been there a couple months.

Opinions vary. Mine is that new rockers are not necessary on a regrind. If I was going with a Schneider cam, I'd have them replaced. Delta Cams can resurface your existing rockers if you want for $3. Or search and there is a thread about how to do it yourself along with a bunch of warnings not to...

Sounds a lot less puny. That should work okay with SU's or stock FI. It's on the small side for triples or aftermarket FI. If you search you'll find that there are coil bind issues with lifts over .460 and valve stem seal issues with lifts over about .470 or .480. They aren't difficult to overcome (just run different valve springs and seals) and the result is well worth it. If you're running a stock FI system you have to be pretty conservative due to the inflexibility of the crappy ECU.

That looks like a rip off, $65 for shipping? Wonder what Harbor Freight charges: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=40925 If it were a good quality vs cheap *** quality thing that would be one thing, but these look like the same unit...

Here's all of them. The 260 cam has just slightly more duration and less lift than the others. It is, by an infinitessimally small amount, the largest of the puny stock cams. If I had one, I'd send it off to Delta or similar for a regrind and have them make something out of it that wasn't so small. EDIT--forgot my linky: http://www.atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/cam/index.htm

You're picking a fight with the wrong guy...

I have a beef with the mount and the proposed fix that bolts to the stock strap holes in front of the diff. This is all untested and theoretical of course, but here it is. Looks to me like the stock strap mounts are going to be 8" or so in front of the area where the strap would need to go. The problem with the design of the front mount as I see it is the length of the "arms" that attach to the bushings in the front of the diff. Those arms give more leverage to the diff as it tries to pull up. I think a pinion snubber (bushing on top that limits upward movement) DIRECTLY ON TOP OF the nose of the diff is the way to go. Think of it this way: you want to prevent your friend from standing up from a kneeling position - yeah you could take that the wrong way, but stop thinking with the little brain for a second . So you stand directly in front of them and put both hands on their shoulders. It's going to be very hard for the other person to get up. Now try again, only this time extend your arms and kneel behind them. Much harder to prevent that lifting motion when you're not perpendicular to it. I agree with the machinist that whatever method is used to prevent the pinion from lifting is going to have to be damn near solid. If the front of the diff can move then the aluminum mustache bar is going to be put in a twisting stress that the stock spring steel mustache bar is a lot better equipped to deal with. I know a couple people who have broken their strap and front diff mount on a R180 and R200 and the diff, still attached to the mustache bar by poly bushings, rocked all the way up to the point where the driveshaft U-joints hit the tranny tunnel!!! That's like 7 or 8 inches that the pinion raised up! The mustache bar didn't break and the front mount was fixed and off they went. The aluminum just doesn't have that flexibility, or if you bent it that far without breaking it wouldn't return to anything like it's original shape. If you want to run the aluminum mustach bar I really think you have to have a very positive way of preventing the front mount from lifting. I know Dave recommends that you use a solid front mount. I would think that if you were going to use a solid front mount then you should just machine the mustache bar bushings from aluminum and solid mount the whole damn thing. Sorry to be so negative, other than that I really like your car qwik240z.

Looks really good! I've got some rust in the rear right about there and was considering doing something pretty similar, but with a normal bulb style light. I like the round light look, and after seeing yours I'm that much more convinced that's what I should do.

Well, I do believe the TC rod pivot relocation project is officially done! I was thinking this morning about patching the frame rail in front of the TC bracket, then it suddenly occured to me that I still had the end of the Bad Dog rails. Remember these? So I figured if I was going to cut the shape in the bottom of the frame rail into a piece of steel, it might as well be those! Line the angled section up to the TC bracket, and now I'd have gusset in another direction. So that's what I did. The angled section was about 3/4 of an inch too tall, and about 5 inches too long, so I trimmed it down for length on the chop saw and cut the angle on the band saw. I did also do the angle iron gusset that was previously discussed. Pics: All in all I think this whole thing turned out pretty damn good. Figure a 10 - 12 lb weight gain, but I got subframe connectors, I can adjust dive and anti-dive a bit, got what looks to be a MUCH stronger than stock TC mount, strengthened my seat bracket, and found and fixed a crack in the frame. Not too bad!

When I was in high school my buddy was gas welding a muffler on a car that was on a rack. His hand holding the welding rod got sweaty, and the rod pivoted in his fingers and slipped out of his fingers. It fell straight down red hot end first, thru his coveralls, thru his jeans, thru his tighty-whities, and stuck about 1/2" deep into a very sensitive area about 1" left of Mr. Happy. He pulled the rod out and had a nice cauterized hole... probably still carries that scar to this day. I guess you could consider him lucky, but still, OUCH!

Yeah, my gut tells me that crack was actually pretty significant. So what do you think about the overall fix? It's kind of hard to get a plate in there to cover that crack because it's a weird curved surface there, so I didn't, but I figure with the reinforced frame rail/subframe connector, the planned angle iron gusset on top and the thicker TC bracket and the brace to the rockers it should be OK. Do you think I did OK?

Dry torque on mine I would guesstimate in the 80 lb range. Wet torque... ~12 to 15 lbs. I've never heard of them getting "more grippy" with heat. I have heard of racers having the LSD slip at the end of a 30 minute sprint race. It seems our info is contradictory on this one. Here is my primary source of info on the Nissan LSD: http://www.gordon-glasgow.org/lsd1.asp and above and beyond that I've gathered info from people who have used these things for years in race cars, like katman, Savage42, and others. Tom- I hear you man. I do think it's worth noting that every other diff I've seen put together has had to have the ring gear beat onto the carrier with a dead blow hammer, except our R200. That lack of a press fit is a good reason to be more concerned with the bolt size. I admit I may be overly concerned with it, but it isn't without any reason at all.

That is pretty incredible. Last guy who tried to duplicate the brake kit came up at the same $$$ amount buying the parts from circle track racing catalogs, and then he had to figure out caliper brackets and all that. Please share your list with the rest of us!

Didn't quite get it all done today, but it's 95% there. Got both subframe connectors done. Need to finish patching the rail in front of the TC box, and I didn't get to the angle iron that I mentioned yesterday. I think I figured out why my car was so twitchy under braking today. The passenger side frame rail above the TC rod had a 1" long crack! The crack was hidden under some of the factory undercoat. And that's thin sheetmetal that was cracked!!! I think this came about from the damage that the car had on the passenger frame rail. It looked like the PO had ran over a curb or something. I never paid too much attention because it aligned out OK even before I had all the adjustable suspension. I guess that is a word of warning for anyone else who has banged up frame rails. So I welded up the crack and got the frame rails done. Had to bend the frame rails to follow the curve of the Datsun rails, and I also had to patch a long triangular section because the frame rail curves in near the TC box, and my Bad Dog special order parts did not. Thanks John, they worked GREAT. Again, if I weren't doing this freaky TC rod modification I think it would have been a couple hours labor to put these things on, and I really feel that they will add a lot of rigidity to the structure of the car. Check out the crack! See it NOW? This before shot is just UGLY! Lot of filling with the welder, but I didn't really see another option... After:

Just run a vent tube to a catch can, don't bother with a valve. In theory the bigger the tube is the better as you don't want pressure inside the crankcase. You might want to check if smog is going to be an issue for you in Iowa, if you saw that CHP video the other day you know they don't like vented crankcases in CA.

PCV vents crankcase pressure. If you plug it the block can't release it's internal pressure, so it will vent to the weakest area, which is usually the seals and the valve cover gasket. You NEED the PCV. Whether you vent to atmosphere or route it to the intake, that's a different argument. Do a search and you'll find some different options.

Yeah, I bought the thing a couple months back. Probably should have dug up the old thread and updated it but didn't. I agree though, if you're a pro get a pro helmet, but the cheap one does do the trick for us weekend warriors.

Go to a Nissan dealer or go to a machine shop. I can't speak to Nissan being the same as Beck/Arnley, that's the first time I've heard that one. If you go to a machine shop you should be able to get a Stone gasket. I only put Stone or Nissan gaskets in mine. I'd use a metal gasket too, just haven't needed one yet.

Riiiiiight. I guess I have no argument for you there Phantom. You got me. Then the issue is "Is it worth it?" Well, how much is impressing your friends or the other people at the car show "worth"? Maybe they would be MORE impressed with the MM brake setup, since it's about twice the price. Which then is a better "value"? Would people be twice as impressed by the MM stuff? Dunno... I leave that up to y'all to figure out.