JMortensen

I've heard of shops doing that. In fact I seem to remember a friend saying that a shop did that to her Z about 10 years ago because it was way off. I never knew what they were bending. For some reason I had imagined them bending the strut right up at the top.

How do you put the shell on a rotisserie after that? Priorities...

You can look it up here: http://www.timken.com/industries/automotive/autoaftermarket/timkencatalog/PartCatalog.aspx

Attempt #2: This time using .120 wall 2x4 tubing. Changed up the design just a bit. I left more meat out back and I decided to contour the tube like John suggested. This will allow the the tubing to connect on the top and the side. Haven't cut the slot yet as I haven't gotten a new 5/8" bit, but I did get one side kinda roughed in. Cut the shape with a cutoff wheel. I'm going to clean it up with a grinder and then the dremel. I have to say that it looks like it's gonna work out really smoothly.

I'd be willing to bet that you'd get more reduction in track time with camber bushings than you would with programmable EFI.

See that thing makes a lot of sense to me. The flares are much wider in the front than the back and totally cover the tires, to push the air past the wheel well openings and not catch it at the back end. Compare those flares to the MSA IMSA flares, which don't cover the front of the tire, but have a big mud flap looking thing at the back end to catch air on the backside of the tire. The fins are really fences (see NASCAR) that keep the air from spilling over the sides of the car and not going over the spoiler. Last, is that my imagination or is that a vortex generator on the thin stripe about 1/3 of the way over?

The more I think about it the more I think it might be a good idea to use those vortex generators to keep the airflow stuck to the hatch, then have it hit a wing or a spoiler at the bottom of the hatch. Seems like a spoiler on the roof is going to create more turbulence behind it, which is already the main source of the problem as I understand it. Or do I just not understand it?

That's good advice, and with the TC rod, just put one of your old worn out rubber bushings in the back and that will significantly reduce the stress on the TC rods.

Please realize that this is just a SWAG, but I wouldn't be surprised if it made ~270bhp, or about 230whp. Pretty similar setup to mine, by the sounds of it. 11:1 compression ported and polished 44 Mikunis 6-1 header with 2.5 mandrel exhaust ZX electronic ignition According to the (questionable) trap speed calculators mine makes 238whp, and it requires 95 octane to keep from pinging...

40s or 45s?

BJ's setup is pretty much exactly what I ran when I put my car together. Works well as a compromise street/track setup. I used to have 2 marks on my tie rod. One was 1/8" toe in and the other was 1/8" toe out. You can adjust that little bit on one side only. Running toe out on the street will tear up your front tires, but it only takes loosening one jam nut and about 1/4 turn of the turnbuckle to change the toe at the track.

Yep. You might get .5 degree out of a slotted strut tower (SWAG). About the same for shimming the TC rod I would bet. Adjustability is nice, might consider some camber bushings as a cheap way to get it, if you're getting serious camber plates are a better option. Adjustable TC rods will give you the caster adjustability.

Looks like a polyurethane encased monoball. Might be nice for reducing NVH for those that care about that, but wouldn't be as precise as a monoball and has the potential to deflect and change your camber settings as it does so. Also, not sure if it's meant to be used vertically. Looks like the only thing holding it together is the snap ring. Maybe not so good an idea to trust that snap ring to take whatever forces come up through the strut (thinking hitting something in the road, crossing railroad tracks, etc). On a camber plate the top end is solid aluminum and the monoball presses into a recessed area, and it's retained on the bottom only by a snap ring.

How about butyl tape? That's what they seal windshields with on cars that don't have a weatherstrip showing. Basically they run a bead of butyl tape around the steel frame that holds the windshield, then stick the winshield onto the tape, then there's usually some trim pieces that cover the gap between the edge of the glass and the car and hold the windshield in place. BTW I don't know why they call it "tape". Tape isn't really a good word for the stuff. It comes in a roll and it's like a 1/2" diameter round heavy tar like substance, very sticky. Any auto glass shop will have it, if you just need a bit for the corners they'll probably give it to you.

If you take them off by grabbing the shaft with a pair of pliers you can put the new ones on by squeezing the bumpstop with a pair of pliers, but be careful not to slip and scratch the strut. Then once you get the new ones on reasonably tight you can follow fastzcars advice and drive to a shop. I forgot to say this before--DO NOT LET THEM GO CRAZY WITH THE IMPACT! I had a friend rip the top of the strut off of one of his Illuminas trying to get it "extra tight". I think the spec is ~40 ft/lbs, but you might want to double check that.

If you're changing the strut you can grab the shaft with a pair of pliers. I usually put them on and take them off with an impact.

Found the 2x4 tube in 1/8", 3/16" and 1/4" wall thickness. I thought they didn't have it last time I was down there. Maybe they were just out. So now it's down to what is the best choice... http://www.pacificindustrial.com/134/1920.html

Well, it looks like 2x4 tubing is definitely going to be the route to take. I installed the strut and took it through the range of motion. No binding at all if the rod end was right in the middle of the slot. It actually worked really nicely right there. When I moved the rod end down as far as I could I found that I couldn't utilize the whole slot because the rod end hit the top of the bracket. This limits my total adjustment to about 3/4" which is less than I was hoping for. Also, I couldn't move the suspension all the way through it's range before the TC rod hit the bracket. 2x4 tubing will definitely solve both of these problems. I took some more pics: This shows how far I can move the rod end before it hits the top of the bracket. LCA angles at FULL droop. Should be just slightly pointing down at race ride height. TC rod hitting bracket at less than full bump. So with that in mind, any opinions on the 1/8" tube for the 2x4? Stiff enough? I was still going to brace it to the rockers, so maybe with that in mind it would be enough?

If you did it that way you'd lose suspension travel. You don't need to WELD the spacer to the bottom of the shock, because when you tighten the gland nut down it holds everything in place. So by putting the spacer in underneath the shock, then the gland nut the shock can still compress all the way down to the gland nut. Tokico Illuminas for a 240 have this very feature. Its the same strut front and rear, but the rears which are 2" taller than the fronts have a 2" spacer press fitted to the bottom.

You got my brain working a little bit on this subject so I just took a looksee in the garage. Looks like the other major issue is that the tie rods would be right where the TC rod would have to go. There was another thread about using a 240Z steering rack and struts in a 510 and that setup used front mounted TC rods. Here is that thread: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=108113 It MAY be possible for someone to set it up this way and have it work out. The 510 and 280ZX TC rods mount to the bottom of the control arm, which just barely allows for clearance for the tie rod. In my case I was planning on running a bumpsteer spacer kit on the outer tie rod, and that would move the tie rod down, maybe allowing for the TC rod to mount in its normal location on top of the control arm. It's too close and there are too many ifs for me to consider changing to the front mounted setup but you did have me thinking pretty hard! Advantages would be that it would be easier to fabricate the mount, since the TC rod mount wouldn't have to cross the frame rail as it does in the 240 design. Also the rods would be longer. Quick tape measure eyeballing puts the rod at about 19" or so long with a front mounted setup, where it is only about 17 with a rear mounted setup. Disadvantages are that the front mounted style LOSES caster as the suspension compresses and the TC rod goes to level, where the rear mounted style gains caster as the TC rod goes to level. I think running a rod end would eliminate the failure aspect of having the rod in tension. I believe that the failures we've seen have more to do with the bushings used than an inherent weakness created by having the rod in tension.

I think it's mostly a lack of skill that would keep me from doing that. The one other guy I know who did something like this on his 510 used 3/16" too, so that was also a motivating factor to use thicker stuff. I can get 2x4 .120 wall tube here locally, but that's a tall tube and I was feeling a little sketchy about it's stiffness. Do you think I'm wrong on that?

The 240/260/280 cams are all the same size, as the heads are all interchangeable. The 260 has a slightly (very slightly) longer duration cam than the 280 head would have. Leave it alone unless you want to go with an aftermarket cam. If you decide to go bigger, which isn't a bad idea, you can run the stock springs until you get to .460 lift. Around .470 lift or so you need new valve stem seals. There's good info about all that stuff if you go down that road, just search and you will find it.

Have you ever seen Le Mans? How about the original Italian Job? Bullit was pretty good. Ronin isn't the strongest movie, but has good car stuff.

Here, I looked up the thread for you: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=87758

In the Datsuns, the ZX and 510 tension rods seem to be more prone to snapping, especially when used with poly bushings. There is a thread by afshin from about a year and a half ago called something like "Scary tension rod failure" and MOST of the people who had broken rods had them in tension, although there were a couple from Z's as I recall.