JMortensen

Wow. That is a good idea! Thanks!

Found those rod ends you were talking about Cary: http://www.bulltear.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=28&products_id=131&osCsid=c621fe1d7cde389e37bc0adc2feca787 $45 each. Yowzah. That's a lotta coin for 2 rod ends. It would work, but that's a lot of money. I just made a list, and to complete my suspension I'll be needing 26 rod ends or monoballs including these. Still thinking about it, but I think I might just make the box large enough to do it later if I ever get a really irresistable urge to switch it up later. It'd be really cool to do the front control arms the same way, but then you're talking $180 in 4 rod ends...

That looks even more similar to mine. I think you'll find that the rubber does protect the metal, so about 1/2" inside the rubber the metal will be fine. You could cut a small patch and weld in that one spot, but why? It's only like a 3" square section right there IIRC. Don't stress over it. I think you'll find out what's really going on when you get the rubber out.

Yeah, the floor is bowed up. I have a porta power, but I don't have a cage to push on. Part of this revamp of the car will include a new roll bar, but I still am not ready to commit to a full cage yet. I'll take a look at that new rod end. I could drill this 3x2 both ways if I really wanted to. As I said I'm quite sure it's burly enough to take the stress either way. I was just going to slot the hole though. Like I said on that other thread, I slotted the crossmember and the control arm hasn't moved on me, so I don't know why the TC rod would be any different. Just another bolt to retorque regularly, and that doesn't bother me. I was thinking of WD-40, but I'd like something that stays put a little better. I suppose it's not too much trouble to oil it up with WD every couple years... Here's the reasons I chose not to use weldthrough primer: 1. expensive 2. My understanding is that it doesn't prevent new rust from forming at the site of any welds you put through it. 3. Zero Rust is supposed to treat, cover, and prevent new rust, and I found it on sale. 4. EXPENSIVE 5. From what I hear, Canadians swear by the oil. I figure if I do the Zero Rust, then the oil, should be plenty good.

You can do either, but I'd go without, because no matter what kind of rubber you put down there, I think its going to have the same issue as the stock stuff, with water getting trapped around the edge.

I've used a chisel to cut a slot in the head and turned them out with a flat screwdriver. Easy and less messy than a dremel. I like Darrel's idea of taking the stress off the screw. Maybe a C clamp might be used for that. Mine were pretty loose though and didn't require much torque to break free.

You're going to run out of damping at about 250 to 275 in/lbs. I'm running 200/250 on mine, and it's fine for me, but I've still got an NA L6, so not quite the same deal hp wise. By a LONG SHOT. Anyway, if it were mine I think I'd try some Koni shocks and some springs in the 350 in/lb range. If you're stuck on those shocks, I'd push my luck and throw a 275 in the back and see if that worked a little better. I think you're going to end up needing more spring rate than that though. Obviously I'm just taking a SWAG at this since you proably have 2x the hp and 3x the torque of my engine...

I thought about that, but there are a bunch of holes in the stock frame rails, and they didn't have a bunch of crap in them when I took them off. I think the goal should not be trying to seal the frame rails to the floor, but really just attaching the rails to the floor.. Maybe, or John at BD suggested using a 2x4 with a heavy weight inside the car. The car is on a rotisserie and the shell is totally gutted, so if I tried to jack it up I think it might just lift the whole thing. The shell only weighs ~500 lbs. One of the nice things about the rotisserie is not having to get underneath the damn thing to weld stuff like this on, so I'm not real inclined to do it in a way that would require me to get underneath, but I suppose it would just have to be tacked in place, then I could flip it over and do all the real welding... I'm sure that I could and that tubing is sufficiently burly that I don't think any of the extra crap I had talked about doing before would even be necessary, but from what I read on that other discussion that we were having about rear suspension I don't think I'll have enough travel. As it is the TC rod is pretty much level to the LCA right now, and that was just the last time I had the car on all 4 wheels with suspension but no engine, tranny, etc. With all the rest on I'm sure it will point up. So I want to raise the pivot up at least as much as the LCA's are, maybe more (and move the LCAs up more as well), but that's probably going to take them to level or just a bit down with the weight of the vehicle on the suspension. Since I've sectioned the struts and cut my bumpstops, I just don't think there will be enough articulation in the rod end to allow full compression of the suspension. Mounting it the other way would easily allow for all the articulation I could get, which is why I think I need to do it that way. No instructions at all. I have one of these though: http://www.eastwoodco.com/jump.jsp?itemID=10966&itemType=PRODUCT so I was just going to drill a couple holes in the rails and spray the inside with Zero Rust. In fact, I was going to do that on all of the frame rails. Then I was also thinking about seeing if I could get the oil that Krown in Canada uses and spray that in there too. I know 260DET has said that you can use fishoilene, but unfortunately for me I'm violently allergic to fish... I think Wurth's HHS2000 would be perfect, since it is a penetrating oil that turns greasy, but I've only ever seen it in an aerosol can. Maybe I could spray from the can into the gun then blast it inside the frame... still figuring that one out.

You definitely want the drain plugs in there. If the heater core takes a crap or something happens with the weatherstripping the plugs will be a big help. I'd just get new ones. I wouldn't POR-15 over the sound deadening rubber though. Mine were a little worse than yours, not too bad at all, no holes bigger than a pinhole, but when I pulled the rubber off there was a ring of surface rust all the way around the border of the rubber. I think that water that does get down to thru the carpets and hits that seams just collects there and slowly begins to rust the sheetmetal. If you're going to treat it against rust, might as well pull that **** off and treat whatever little bit of rust is there.

I wouldn't do it Isk. You'll have SO much work to get all of your trick one off stuff into that shell. Find one that's been hit in the rear and cut the frame rail off and weld that onto your car. That'd be the way to go IMO.

My boss was given one for his Astro van by a Tornado sales rep when they first came out, ran it and saw no difference whatsoever. On their 2L bottle trick that they always show the air from the bottom bottle can't get out, and that is why the water glugs down from the top; basically the heavier weight of the water compresses the air in the bottom, then as the water pours down it burps the air into the top. Get the vortex going and there is a big hole in the middle for the air to get out, so the water pours right down. Big mystery there.

I6 = 6 cylinders and 7 main bearings V6 = 6 cylinders and 4 main bearings Of course the I6 has the longer heavier crank too, but I've always been told the block and it's much better suport of the crank is the main difference strengthwise.

Yep. That 2-3 gap is a killer on the track.

If you've got a 3.54 an early Z 5 speed would probably be a better match. A later ZX and a lower rear gear is better on a NA engine, if you have the choice. I'd be really surprised if the problem wasn't what I explained on classiczcars.com where the shift fork moved. Just too weird that the stick would be in neutral and the car would still be in gear. And you can't get it out because the stick can't get to that shift rail with the car in gear.

One more thing. I was thinking of 74's mishap where the TC rod hit the frame. My tentative solution was to take a piece of my roll cage tubing, cut it in half, and notch the frame and weld that section in for increased clearance. If needed.

OK, I'm back into this one again. Hoping you guys have some suggestions for me (again). I was holding off on this project until my Bad Dog subframe connectors got in. They just came in ...but they aren't going to work as well as I had hoped. If I were just slapping these over the stock rails as they are designed to do, they'd already be on the car. They would be simple to install. Just for kicks I weighed them. They came in at 20 lbs. Weighed the rails and TC boxes that I cut off the car and they were ~14 lbs. Of course, I still have to add the heaviest part, which will be the TC boxes themselves, but I think I'm going to get out of this for about a 10 lb weight gain. Pretty respectable. And for the average Joe putting this on over stock rails on their V8 Z, the 20 lbs seems like a bargain for what you're getting. Enough plugging Bad Dog parts. Took some pics to show the Bad Dog rails, and the problems I'm running into: Rear part of the rail where it attaches to the rear subframe. It doesn't sit up real tight against the curve between. I suppose that curve might vary between cars. No matter, it connects almost all the way up the sloped part of the floor and all across the bottom of the rail. On the inside of the rear part of the connector it doesn't meet the frame rail, because the frame rail curves right in that space. Again, doesn't seem like it will matter because the connector can attach to the sloped part of the floor, and all the way across the bottom. I just set the TC rod bucket and that part of the frame rail on the car to show how the Bad Dog part would slide on were that part of the frame still on the car. Another shot of the same. Damaged area of frame where I had to fight the TC bucket to get it off the rail. I think I'm going to cut the rusty damaged section out on each side and weld in a new flat section of 1/8" x 3" flat stock. I'll have to do this on both sides. Damage on other side. The frame rail on the straighter floor pan sits about 1/2" away from the rail for most of the length of the rail. I'm thinking about drilling holes along the flange and bolting the floor to the rail to suck them up to each other so that it can be stitch welded. Of course then I'd have quite a few holes to fill. Any other ideas? This shows how far away the box is (roughly) from where the Bad Dog frame rail ends. I'm going to see if I can get them to send me a couple more feet of the channel section like is used on the bottom of the floor. I'll then weld a section of that from the floor up to the TC box. A top shot shows approximately the gap between the end of the Bad Dog rail and the TC bucket. Again, on a stock rail this just isn't a problem. I'm going to have to notch the rail to get the box to sit square, because unlike 74's nice straight rails, the stock Z rail has this long angle from the firewall to the main square section of rail.

I got them direct from Porterfield. Be careful though, there is a different pad on the early vs later calipers.

Porterfield makes pads for the early Toyota. The R4S is an aggressive street pad but WILL NOT hold up to heavy track abuse. The R4 will hold up better on the track but takes time to heat up so isn't the best on the street. I haven't used their endurance pad the R4E.

I bought the 6AL just for the rev limiter. Here's a page with pretty detailed instructions on how to tear the distributor down: http://www.jrdemers.com/280ZX/distributor/distributor.html If you pull the cap and see little BB's in there then that means your vacuum advance has taken a crap like they all do. I've only seen one that wasn't in pieces, and it was already cracked, just hadn't come apart yet. Anyway follow that page, there is another good page from the Atlanta Z club I just don't have the link anymore. Those will walk you through making sure your distributor bushings are in good shape. Then you want to keep the vacuum advance from shifting. I JB welded it all together, you might be able to bolt it together too. It takes a figuring out, so don't even attempt it if you aren't at least a little handy. Anyway I think the vacuum advance is the weak link on those distributors. Mine had failed, all the ball bearings had come out and the stator had tilted so that the reluctor was hitting it and causing all kinds of weird timing issues, that's why I did it on mine.

Disable the vacuum advance, add MSD, and run about 18 degrees advance at idle.

I'll be sure to put some anti-seize on mine next time. Thanks Grumpy, I don't know about the rest of you all, but I'm satisfied that this is the answer.

I don't think this is necessarily the fault of the last guy who put the plug in. I think it has something to do with a steel plug in an aluminum housing. My drain plug recently got totally stripped when I tried to drain my trans. I was trying to remove the plug with a 1/2 inch impact and even that wouldn't take it out. I KNOW that I don't overtighten the plugs. My theory on tightening oil drain plugs and trans and diff plugs is that all it has to do is keep the oil in, and not fall out while you're driving. I'd guess I torque them to 15 lbs or so. Maybe a little less. When I worked for Volvo we had lots of problems with the 850 oil plugs getting stuck. There was one case where the aluminum oil pan actually cracked before the drain plug came loose. I used to do a lot of LOFs there and it got to the point where I wouldn't even try to loosen them. I'd walk up with a 19mm wrench and a 2 lb sledge hammer. Usually the jolt from the hammer would crack them loose. I think it's just a corrosion issue or a different expansion rate of the plug and the housing issue more than an idiot at the lube place.

I worked for a Jeep/Eagle dealer in about 93 and there had to be at least one of those a week. At least you know the PO enjoyed it! My understanding is the way that failure happens is by taking it to a really high rpm and then letting off the gas suddenly, like when you're at the end of a straightaway and you jump on the brakes to slow for the corner. Great deal for $1500!

Are you talking about their epoxy sealer stuff? You normally don't cut the tank open for that. I haven't used it but my understanding is that you use the cleaning agent and you just roll it around in the tank, then you do the same with the sealer stuff. Welding the whole seam around the edge of the tank would be asking for trouble later IMO. If you had to cut a hole that's what I would do. Cut a small hole in the tank and then stick your arm in there if it's absolutely necessary. As to welding it back up, that's also a tough one. First choice would be tig, but you might be able to mig it up tight so that it doesn't leak. Definitely want to test for leaks if you weld it though. I had a friend mig weld up an oil pan with a more baffled sump and it looked water tight but when he was done it looked like the oil was seeping right through the welds.

You've got some really cool stuff on that car. I wouldn't get a new shell just because somebody made it. So far from what I've seen it looks like he made everything right.