JMortensen

When I bought my Miller welder it came with a Hobart helmet. That thing kept flashing me, and I think at the time I was arguing with Pop N Wood that cheap helmets sucked, for proof I was using my "better quality" Hobart helmet to compare against. Well, he pretty much stuck it to me, showed me that the time to darken and the size of the lens was at least as good as the Hobart helmet, so I ended up buying the HF helmet. I got mine for $49.95. It is a TON better than the Hobart helmet that my welder came with. Only flashed me once or twice now, and that's when there was a little flame going on, like some paint burning right next to where I was welding. For some reason that little tiny flame really seems to mess with the switch that changes the lens from light to dark. Here is a link: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=91212

Yeah, you got the right idea. I want to see how much droop your suspension has. So push the zip tie all the way down then set the car on the ground, maybe roll it back and forth a couple feet so that it settles. Then jack it back up and we can see how much travel is being used when the car just sits with it's weight on the springs.

Funny you should mention that. I was going to do that tomorrow with a piece of angle iron, just welding it in from the top of the frame rail down to the bracket.

If you're not racing you don't need it. If you needed it, you would know already and you wouldn't be asking.

That's really good advice Michael. Thanks.

Bad news: Getting a little fed up with this project. Good news: It's almost done. I welded on my TC brackets today, along with a support that attaches to the rocker for each side. When I welded the brackets to the frame I grabbed one and wiggled and you could SEE the frame rail flex. That frame rail is sheet metal thin!!! Kinda scary... I'm glad I did the braces to the rockers. Where I attached to the rocker is actually pretty thick and strong, so that part at least should give some support. Once I got the braces welded on I could no longer sense any flexion, but being that the frame rail was that weak I gotta assume its there. I'm still thinking of other ways to make it stronger, like turning the crossmember into a K member. I don't want to do it though, then find out that my oil pan or exhaust doesn't clear or something stupid like that. My brackets ended up having only 1 1/8" of adjustability in them due to interference issues with the frame rail. The nice part is that it coincided perfectly with my previous crossmember slotting. The crossmember slot went from 3 3/4" to 2 5/8". The new TC bracket is slotted from 2 3/4" to 1 5/8". So they're just right, since the stock setting was to have the TC pivot one inch higher than the LCA pivot. I still have to connect the subframe connectors to the bracket. That got a little tricky because of the curve of the frame rail down towards the bracket, but I think I've got a handle on it. I did have to leave a little gap to allow room for the bolt head fit in the slot when the TC rod is all the way up. I think this will be done in a day or two, then I can move onto something else... finally. Maybe I'll get back into the roll bar...

Welcome to the world of high performance! My friend used to say that to me whenever some part that I bought didn't fit right out of the box. Used to drive me nuts. Now I get to drive someone else nuts...

We were considering MO for a bit, as my sister-in-law lived there, but then she moved back to CA, so now there's just no reason to go out there. I think the wife is starting to focus on Idaho. I'm still thinking CO or NM might be good options. I'm also interested in the Flagstaff area, but I'm guessing it's beyond my means. I had an uncle who lived there and in Phoenix. Would never ever consider Phoenix, but Flagstaff was pretty nice as I recall. The only thing good about Palmdale/Lancaster is the proximity to Willow Springs. Other than that, what a friggin hole!!! I don't think my wife would appreciate the commute on the 14 either. I've driven against the traffic going to Willow Springs a couple times, and you can't help but feel sorry for the schmucks as you drive past 20 miles of bumper to bumper traffic. You know what is a nice little sheltered place though is that road between Palmdale and Valencia, San Francisquito Rd. At least it used to be 10 years ago. There's a bunch of beautiful areas in there, Bouquet Canyon is one that I remember. There's even a lake back there. Beautiful. I guess that is supposed to be where Mulholland built his dam that failed and killed a bunch of people back in the 20's or 30's IIRC. Anyway, it's nice back there, I really like it, but it's surrounded by crap.

I think fastzcars and blueovalz have the right idea. Another good thing to do would be to jack each end up, put a zip tie around the strut shaft and set it down on the ground. Then take the tires off and take that pic so that we can see where the spring perches are and where the struts sit at the current ride height. If they're topped out, and it kinda sounds like they are, the solution should be to run 8" springs and raise up the collar 2". That would put you right back where you are now, and you could lower from there. Still sounds like the collars are installed higher than need be, because if they're all the way at the bottom now, you'll only get the car 2" down from where it is now and you'll be bottomed on the coilover again.

tube80z had a post a while back where he talked about these beads that were specifically for molding seat foam. I think the idea was pretty much the same. Bag over seat, put the beads and the catalyst in, sit in the seat and it would expand around you. Normal expanding foam is stiff and wouldn't make good padding. You can also buy upholstery foam from an upholstery store, and you can cut it with one of those 70's electric carving knives, if you remember those...

I don't think anyone makes a spool for the R200.

I believe John Coffey has gone into it. Preload the side gears and use a particular type of filler rod is what I recall from that thread. Search and you should find it.

A friend of mine did this like 15 or 20 years ago. They stripped a Z seat, added two big huge bolsters made from round tubing, covered them in foam and they literally stuck out of the normal upholstery. He called it "The Iron Maiden" and they were in his 510 for a long time until I think he couldn't fit between the bolsters anymore. I sat in it a couple times and it was really uncomfortable, but I think that was more because of how he did it and the angle that the bolsters were at, not a reflection on the idea itself.

Welded. You don't ever need differentiation when you're going in a straight line.

A proportioning valve doesn't give 70% to the front and 30% to the rears or whatever. It actually has a non-proportional effect on the rear brake pressure. So a lot of guys run duals not for safety, but because you can control the pressures directly and proportionally. Follow the link on John's Brake Balance FAQ. There are some good graphs on that page that really show you the difference.

A regular master is actually two one in front of the other. The usual reason for using two separate masters is to give a different amount of pressure to the calipers front and back and thus control the bias. That's why you see lots of racing master cylinder setups with dual master cylinders. My question is why not just use a brake master cylinder instead of a clutch master? I don't know that there is any difference internally, but the few people I know using dual brake masters don't find them to be failure prone, I think they're all using Tilton masters FWIW.

In the US, we call those inner tie rods. Only reservation I have is the thin looking section right at the end of the ball. I know that the lots of people have used inner tie rods for this, back in the day the BRE 510 used one, but I don't know what vehicle they came off of. If they've survived rally racing in a car of similar weight I wouldn't be too concerned.

Having driven my own L6 Z with a 12 lb flywheel, another stockish Z with a 10 lb flywheel, and 510s from stockish to pretty crazy with 10 lb flywheels, I can tell you where the not-street-friendly stories come from. 4 cylinders. They just don't have enough rotating and reciprocating mass in the engine to keep it spinning as you try to let out the clutch, especially if you're on any sort of hill. My friend's 510 was the worst. He had a Nissan Comp pressure plate that was stiff as hell and 44 Mikunis on a L16. Worked great at the track, but it was damn near impossible to drive on the street. The stockish 510 actually wasn't so bad, but it was an L20B and it had a lot more torque down low. All of the L6's that I've driven with light flywheels were very easy to drive even in stop and go traffic, even my 44 Mikuni / ACT pressure plate setup. Biggest advantage to the light flywheel IMO is in heel toe downshifting. Makes it 10x easier.

Actually his was a solid window, but the truck was brand spankin new and the weatherstrips were still really pliable. On mine I have a slider, but my weatherstripping has always been a little stiffer, but it is still surprisingly easy to pop out. So the other way to install a window is to lube up the edge then push and pound on it until the rubber flexes over the sheetmetal lip? That sounds like the hard way for sure...

Right but it seems to me that the problem is that the airflow over the back of the car loses contact with the hatch, then the airflow under the car swirls up and back towards the hatch. So from above and below you have air swirling back at the hatch. If you kept the airflow stuck to the hatch then the exhaust wouldn't be able to swirl back into it, right? But you'd probably be more efficient at making upforce if my uneducated hunch is correct. So you put a big whale tail or ricer style wing back there, and now you've solved both problems (I think).

It's probably going to be just a tad lower than my sig picture and still have about 1/2 the travel available. In the sig picture I was running about 1.5" off the bumpstops.

That's where my mind was going too Jim.

I thought that you were supposed to put the trim in before reinstalling the window. In fact, I thought it was damn near impossible to put the trim in afterwards because it's so thin. I think I got that impression years ago from the IZCC list. Hope I'm wrong.

Must be a 280 thing. Don't have those on a 240. Clean looking shell though!!!